Waking

woke up in a dream wondering if this is real or that which passed

..

Anant Dhavale

Autumn Buddha

Your radiance would have swayed me
Another day, another time

But today
I am content 
Watching leaves fall
From a distance

Orange, red, brown
Colors of an autumn Buddha.

—

Anant Dhavale

Haiku - recent / random

 I woulda bought your book

but it was a hot New York evening 

and all I needed was more beer

..

monday night 

in the tavern of loneliness 

revelers drink to sadness

..

coastal town

the sun, frozen 

in a haze of time

..

a bird, perched up high

in a tree — feels the truth

it cannot explain 

..

your evocative eyes

let me know when 

to stop talking 

..

cloudy morning 

something flaps in the wind

a subdued beginning 

..

this one goes up-town

with a hub-bub of people

and their belongings 

..

a primal train scream

shards strewn astray

summer, in its full glory 

..

patter of raindrops 

like a stranger’s knock 

click clickety click

..

rainy morning wraps

the metropolis in a mist

of being and nothingness 

..

spring falters 

on the banks of 

returning cold

..

blue blue blue

a certain cold hue

my eyes won’t discern 

..

beautiful girl 

in a sub-urban metro

a dance of light and shadows 

..

sub-urban night 

slow jazz of stars

sky, a purple unfazed 

..

soft sounds of rain

a quiet evening

sleep — a distant corridor 

..

driving in rain

on quiet long nights 

the blue hum of time

..

imagination is 

a boat — weather torn

forlorn

..

soon we will forget 

the blizzards, the frost

such flows time

..

and there I see her

like a ray of sunshine

a soothing breeze 

..

like a relic of the past

a thought remains frozen 

waiting for the thaw 

..

cold cold nights 

amber hazy skies

myths re-spoke 

..

Anant Dhavale

( These, like most poems here are raw and in the making. I edit and re-edit poems before they get published anywhere.)

Gipsy

 I was spiritually more aware as a 
 Young person than I am now
 What really happened to me —
 The world sucked me in? 
 Did I nurture too many aspirations? 
  
 I say ambition isn’t wrong
 But you should know if it’s for you 
 Sooner or later 
 A vagabond Gipsy inside of you
 Admonishes you for being 
 This involved.
  
 But here’s the thing 
 Nothing and no one can solve this puzzle
 Not a careless screw-up
 Not a person of the world
 Everybody is as fucked up as you are —
  
And that mere thought is oddly comforting. 

**

 

Anant Dhavale

Rhythm

 WIP - Part of a long poem

Rhythm: Tap, Cling, Tap, Tap, Lapse.

The empty vase lacked the glory of voluminous red roses – so they filled it up, with a dozen

of red. In Eastern cultures, similar large jars are used for pickled fruits. Bright and brown, almost olive, fruit preserved in natural oils. Time attached to things and Places. Food, flowers. Culture travels through your feet, the journey you make. Eliot’s magi Were pilgrims. Every breath is a pilgrimage, reverential, feared too. Pour some water into your vases so the flowers won’t wither away, use the flower food that came with the dozen. Dozen – one of those words with a feeling, a brazen sonorous hum. Nature to hand-made, akin to the flow of time. Sheepish wind can bring stranger aromas, relinquished languages, and grained stances, in a way meddling.  If those ignorant feet stepped into puddles – there would be splashes, sounds, and stains - by-products of journeys. Flowers become proclivities turned into meditations of loss and learning, some bespoke knowledge wide open for interpretations. Awareness a burden, for heaving chests.

Rhythm: Lapse, Tap, Cling, Tap, Tap.

An inconsequential post-rain night, the neighborhood gone quiet, no droning of fans, no music from televisions. Radios gone quiet for the night. Crickets – incessant sounds, swelling up to the blue, dark blue, bluer expanse. Almost eight and forty, but a memory like some vain lunacy refuses to die. Eight and forty, but the number is a made-up notion. The blind won’t go all the way down, an opportunistic light peers through frosty glass. Her ways are brisk, but strangely her smile idles on my mind in a luscious way, those hazel green eyes with all the power to fetch in arousal – not absolute but a distinct possibility. Bereft of senses, pushing aside the sane – the right thing to do. More far than close, as abstract as it could be. Who is to say -- that finding something at random is foretellable?

Rhythm: Lapse, Tap, Cling, Cling, Cling, Cling, Tap.

The sense of failing underwrites sermons of loss and findings. A fantastical tale of molecules, the energy an unwavering constant. 

Anant Dhavale

Let

Let then proclivities rule the day
Till shadows hit the waters

And winds change in ways
Unmeasured and abrupt 

This cumbersome-ness of breath etched 
upon windowpanes 
deepens by the coolness of air 
a burden far too great 
to carry all along

Seasons hunt for inlets

a nonchalant flood 

a disproportionate rushing-in 

dimness, perfunctory

assays of molten
thought and desire 

run heavy on days

and years and months

How then to refuse the little 
respites of exultation 

bubbling in the rivulets

of life.

..

Anant Dhavale

( Heavily edited version)

Forgotten loves

Forgotten loves- 
An aging mother 
A father long lost.

Forgotten loves -
Sweet childhood days
The smell of fresh blossoms 

Forgotten loves-
Simpler joys
A little less convoluted 
World.

Forgotten loves - 
A contented heart 
A careless laugh 
A merry hop in the wind.
.
Anant Dhavale

Relinquishing - En Masse

The train stands still 
with a disinclination to move

These dust-laden tracks were made that way, 
their lack of empathy is by design

But people are either stoic
or they've merely given up,
on a large number of things

Themselves, society, governments
things a watcher cannot discern, 
beyond wrappers of bravery

a lack of will omnivailes

Hiding truths that probably matter, histories 
accumulated on their own

A mist of hopelessness floats
around the monoliths fallusing up 
from the barren, sun-burned ground

Bared by the feet of millions - the unknown builders of  
these magnificent tombs of greatness 

with their work-hardened hands 

A relinquishing happens en masse 
a collective unhappiness gets embraced

I could have termed it ignorance 

had I been haughty and judgmental

and not a wayward rivulet of the great river

This ever-present need to not know 
this flat-out refusal to question things

But right now, in this
solipsistical rant

I try to emulate the stoicity 
of generations - attempt to
find its roots in the fickle strands of protein

We fondly term DNAs.

..

Anant Dhavale

Note - I just made up the word omnivailes, something that prevails everywhere.

Previous version of the poem :

Apathy, generalized

The train stands still 
with an apparent dis-inclination toward the desire to move
dust-laden tracks were made that way, their 
lack of empathy is by design
and people are either stoic
or they've merely given up 
given up on a plethora of things
themselves, the society, the governments
a watcher does not know, the
lack of will omni-vales 
wrappers, dust-laden - happily pervade
not feeling the need to know 
could be termed as ignorance
by the haughty and the judgemental
but at this moment in time, with these
 solipsistical musings
I am trying to emulate the stoicity - if we can call it that,
of generations - attempting to
inscribe it on the protein- strands we like to call
chromosomes.

-

Anant Dhavale

Let

 Let then proclivities rule the day

Till the shadows hit the waters

And winds change in ways

Unmeasured and abrupt 

This cumbersome-ness of breath, etched 

Upon windowpanes 

Aggravated by the coolness of air 

Is a burden far too great 

To carry all the way

Seasons will hunt for inlets

To get inside our heads

Flooding fragile senses 

With a perfunctory dimness

Of thought and desire 

How then will we refuse ourselves the little 

Respites of exultation along the waves of 

Life, rushing through the rivulets of time.

..

Anant Dhavale

Nehru’s ghost

It lurks - in the corridors of schools and colleges 
In the yellowing pages of history books.

Its presence can be felt in the brand new swanky
buildings of the Sansad Bhavan.

It bothers people, reminding them of their 
constitutional duties, and the set of behaviors that keep sense and sensibility alive.

It crouches on steely chests of proud
politicians and rulers.

It is said that Lincoln’s ghost haunts the white house - possibly to warn people of the dangers that come from mobocracy. 
We can say the same of Nehru’s ghost.

It lingers and hovers around the hallowed halls of
India’s democracy, maybe like a guardian angel - 
or an angry spirit.

But who is to say? 
. 

Anant Dhavale

One

hardboiled eggs
unsweetened black tea
morn-time shenanigans 
.

Anant Dhavale 

Wordshed NYC poetry reading event.

I am one of the featured readers at the Wordshed poetry reading in Bowery (lower Manhattan) this month. I might read some of my newer stuff, let's see.

Haiku

in a surreal world 
dance is a state of mind 
a phase of being

.

Anant Dhavale

Icy

your icy demeanor
reminds me of a cloud
dying to burst open 

#

Anant Dhavale

Ode to humanity and William Carlos Williams

The coffee has gone cold

I can nuke it if you want 

she says it's alright

so I turn to my phone again

the news streams keep getting worse

and I am a little dazed this morning

from yesterday's beer

it was a European brew 

a little bitter 

the ones that come in green bottles

with edged crowns 

and lesser-known names.

 

It’s a muggy day

and humanity is almost on the cusp of a total meltdown

so we get on with the hours

like William Carlos Williams 

would have, 

through the narrow streets of Rutherford, New Jersey

after a home visit to an ailing child.

 

Anant Dhavale

( From "What the Tornado Left Behind.)