Kanher

No recompense for the thousand shards of self
What about this smothering cloud
What of the travails of a long journey

Buzzards one and two, high they used to fly. I noticed them
Frequently on my long wind-bitter winter walks
A whimsy with its own color and smell

I did not see them among the decaying heights of New York
None. Drifters, yes, hordes of them, fellows stranded on the artistic bends
Quiet and turbulent souls on late-night homeward trains

No respite from living, from breathing the continuum
Veins are freed from the weather’s wrath but storms 
Always always on the way back, a clockwork of the absurd

The Kanher loses a shade or red each summer with me
Such poison, such gloom, this evening could almost kill me and yet.

 

Anant Dhavale

(Kanher : Nerium Oleander)

Mayflower

A gossamer thin ocean hits low notes today 

Only the lower ones, the hapless sullen lover

The nonchalant up - above couldn’t care less 

Wind bleats, boat creaks, pet dogs merry-hop in the sea-wind

These shores they say have seen the Mayflower

And yet, several hundred others sunk to the merciful bottom

Going down is hard albeit low effort

People of the first light walked here; waters are the finest monuments

To have seen it all. Flotsam of undaunted lives

Lighthouses, moved and freshly painted still can't shake off 

Dim fragments of light swept in from the depths of turbulent nights

The biggest moon of the year's impending, we must head back 

Soon. Quietly we exchange smiles like vows. 

Sense drowns deep in me or perhaps it’s the nip of the wind

Like a fool I toss away my shoes and walk 

Barefoot on the beach, soft sand and silken touch and all. 

.Anant

Notional Pie

a kiss

missed

is akin to 

the notional pie

you would want to

but couldn't

consume.

-Anant

Mir's Poems

back then

when we were 

obsessed with 

poems of Mir

a cloud of melancholy

would shroud 

us in

the sadness, inexplicable

yet beautiful in

some bygone way

and how we sat through the

hours

and how the hours 

lingered for us

with us

much like they did in

Mir's poems.

-Anant

quest

another quest

another day

a loner path

waives away

history drools

by awkward shrubs

huddled together, in

the desert's way

-Anant

attainable

men and women of

our times

we trudge the muddy waters

of our circumstance

in search of 

obscure individual

glories

some un-realized splendor

a certain summit

shines in the 

distance

always visible, yet

never attainable. 

- Anant

lethargia

 lethargia

some the rain

ushered in

some the

existential

boredom

a lulled knock

on the windowpane.

-Anant