Springtime Desolation

From our fancy cars to our cozy homes, filled to the brim with things of comfort 
and instantaneous joys, what hounds us - what emptiness hoovers our lives.

we boast of our wisdom and marvel at our heavy, expensive volumes
of Homer and Plato and Emily and Gandhi.
Decorated tombs of men and women of yore. 

we meet at poetry readings and laugh and drink and squeeze energy from
the newly supple spring air.
Breathe us the mirth.

this could be the New York School of Poetry of our times or the immigrant
generation of the Beats. Or a nothinger in a sea of other nothingnesses. 

nights are blue and virile, ripe with sparkling charms.
And stars are good at being the deadbeat masses of gas and dirt. 

but the emptiness still hounds us.  

*

Anant Dhavale

(This poem was recently published in the “This Broken Shore” magazine. )

A Ghazal

 A Ghazal

In heart's alleys, a singular halo of sadness remains

In a little nook of mind, a lingering darkness remains

Forgotten shores, lapping and frothing waves, warmer banks of sands
Memory's broken figment, a shadowy lightness remains

I’ve been what I’ve been, a stranger and a wanderer even
Not her though, like steadfast angelic light, her kindness remains

Under the canopy of countless stars and a brighter moon
A doubt lurks, a question hums and hums, a lonesomeness remains

How we have walked along these uncertain and weary roads
And though the perils are forgotten, the awareness remains

__

Anant Dhavale

(I wrote this Ghazal in simple syllabic verse to match the cadence the genre requires..)

Haiku

sub-tropical marsh
an alligator meditates
lilies peek out

.

Anant Dhavale 

[Haikus for the Everglades]

If

If you’ve loved me unconditionally
And I have failed to reciprocate
You should know I am not the one

Love demands steadfast devotion
But I am a mere leaf in the wind
Do not mourn for me if I float away 

I abandon the tree that birthed me
When times change and colors fade

The wind carries my judgment and
When it beckons, I have to go away. 

..

Anant Dhavale

Amber rises the moon

Beneath - thick green woods
A jubilant river makes its way through the gorge

Rims of gray hang around a few stray clouds

Silvery silhouettes float away
in tandem - a swift movement of tectonic plates

Amber moon melts away
in the distance - a smoke, a pallid hue spreads.

..

Anant Dhavale

Recent poems

I've written much these days but have not published here since most publications insist on previously unpublished stuff. Prominent ones include "One Flat Microcosm," "Daughters of Israel," "Springtime Desolation," "Sisterhood of Dukhha," and "Civilization is a Zero Sum Game."

"One Flat Microcosm," and "Springtime Desolation," are published in "This Broken Shore," magazine. 

Affinity

What affinity brought us closer
And kept us together  -

Us, the otherwise molecules
In randomness.

.

Anant Dhavale

( Simpler verses)