Lockdown Poetry 16

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The sixteenth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Akila G.

Silver Lining

Ma exchanges bowls like notes. Dal dhokli for pacchadi, tomato rice for handwo, homemade papads for chivda. It happens with a quick ring of the bell or a knock at the door.

learning
to take a screenshot
online classes

Amidst a long day where all the prepositions take turns to sit between work and home, she savours these delicacies of love, warmth and hope.

Timetable

She is not in a hurry; the grey pigeon on the parapet wall facing my balcony. She picks her feathers, bobs her neck pacing up and down. I am late today. The cumbersome work, howsoever much scheduled, eats into you; once in a while, to say, the least. Even my cup of tea betrayed me with the jaggery breaking down the milk. So much for a robotic quandary.

The pigeon is my consolation and I have grown to believe now that she waits for me, albeit with little impatience. She grunts her dismay with a pound of low notes. I wobble a bit, rest my tired hands on the railing imploring her for empathy and forgiveness. I shrug my shoulders too. She bends down pretending to peck at nothing in particular and looks up.

lockdown routine-
she asks me
what day it is

A New Name for Isolation

Grandma would always insist on closing eyes in prayer.

“Only His picture must be there”. She would say with a soft tap on my head.

And then from the depths of the red fluid light of tightly shut eyelids, would rise the actors from the TV serial Ramayan. Arun Govil as Lord Rama and Deepika as Devi Sita. Later, Nitish Bharadwaj joined from the serial Mahabharat as Lord Krishna.

Years later, a meditation workshop was organised by the school for twelfth graders. The instructor returned a wry smile when I wrote about falling into dreams in the feedback form.

I have never been alone, really…

solitude-
all that noise between
birth and death

Lockdown Poetry 15

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The fifteenth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Shobhana Kumar.

Remnants

The kiosk is run by a lady who opens shop at 7 in the evening everyday. In the corporate world, she may have won accolades for her punctuality. But here, there’s only the haphazard queue of auto drivers, cab drivers, and daily wage labourers that squat on plastic stools and eat, perhaps their first meal of the day. She has always been generous with her portions.

Now, there is only a dark pool of oil that her kerosene stove has spilt.

Kiosks don’t qualify for essential services.

moonbow
no omens for the future
in sight

Apocalypse

In a cabbage farm one hundred miles away, a field bursts with promise. There is no truck, no middleman sauntering in, claiming to know the market best.

harvest song
a cradle squirms
under a mango tree

The farmer sends out a distress call and when no one answers, he opens his field to the village livestock. Over herd ruminations he sends out a warning of a famine on the horizon. Again, his voice is lost in urbane cacophony.

rain clouds
a cow takes a cattle egret
for a ride

Lockdown Poetry 14

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The fourteenth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Minal Sarosh.

social distancing
the lone hibiscus blooms
in the balcony

wind chime
only the breeze moves
in and out

self quarantine
the caterpillar and I
move at the same pace

twittering birds
how I wish to join their
conversation

working from home
I add layers to the
jumbo sandwich

Lockdown Poetry 13

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The thirteenth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Debbi Antebi.

panic buying
I stock up
on books

every day
a little longer
lockdown diary

city shutdown
a scatter of pigeons
waiting for crumbs

long illness –
pink dogwood blooming
without me

silent night
waking up to the sound
of my thoughts

Lockdown Poetry 12

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The twelfth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Dr Brijesh Raj.

quarantine
all the me time
I’ve never wanted

Samarra

Tired eyes throb from too much screen time. The lower back feels like an unwanted lover, the brain like fuzz.

self-quarantine
face-timing my girl
next door

Long forgotten mint leaves turn black. The ginger dry and shriveled. As if past caring too.

isolation
the lone widow
quite at home

A sparrow screams at my Persian cat. A disgruntled Faye walks off to glare at the neighbor’s caged roosters.

still reaching out
to the birds
amputee tree

A single police van patrols past, warning the odd straggler to stay home. The pavement dwellers are too stoned to bother. For them, it’s all the same.

algal bloom
who wipes the tears
off the fish?

fistfuls of sky
the social distancing
of parakeets

Unlike Old Times

The rakish howl of a conch precedes a light sprinkling of bell sound. Briefly cohabits with the silence spanning the edges of my locked down microcosm. A bullfrog sends out concentric feelers from his stone throne in the gutter. Weeds with sunflowerly pretentions sigh under the humid night sky. The slum colony nearby occupies itself with cards, carrom and cable TV, its donated rations of rice and lentils devoured.

Zen-tangle
the darkening downstroke
of my graphite mood

Back home the wife swaps recipes over the phone with her isolated father.

My staccato instructions to the quarantined student-nephew singe the airwaves. “Drink ginger tea…golden milk…gargle…inhale steam. Please stop smoking!” He grimaces and sends a bony hand trawling through his disheveled hair. “Could we play online scrabble sometime?”, he asks, eyes tearing up.

Somewhere in the distance a melody of loss whispers its way home. Muted perhaps, out of consideration for the living.

choked throat…
not saying how much
I miss you

Lockdown Poetry 11

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The eleventh poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Madhuri Pillai.

front porch…
in the wicker basket
I leave masks for my friend

backyard –
my silence immersed
in wattlebird’s songs

social distancing
checking on my neighbour
over the phone

lingering afternoon…
in dappled sunlight
birch leaves dance

the silence of the night plane traversing my insomnia

Lockdown Poetry 10

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The tenth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Geethanjali Rajan.

Art credits – Dhaatri Menon

Lockdown Poetry 9

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The ninth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Praniti Gulyani.

silent street…
the occasional creak
of a wheel’s shadow

deserted street…
a squirrel examines
the graffiti

all alone…
searching for someone
to worry about

abandoned garden…
the drip-drip-drip
of silence

still alone…
finally I get used
to myself

Lockdown Poetry 8

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. A big thank you to all those who contributed to this effort by sending us your beautiful words and images. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The eighth poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Sonam Chhoki.

Photo by Pem C. Gyamtsho

When all of now is this

night and day update
of the spreading virus
in the still bare lilac
its feathers wind-blown
a thrush sings its heart out

all hopes of the Pink Moon*
gone in the cold, cold rain
at dawn
the mist-shrouded slope dripping
duets of the pale-footed warblers

frost still rimes the grass
yet its dark fisted buds
open to a deep pink
the cherry seems in a hurry
this spring of the covid

elderly neighbour
who always offers me tea
waits at her window
all there is to say now
is a smile and a wave

lockdown
rumours of supplies
running out
I fill the largest ting**
light a butter lamp

*Pink Super Moon on 7th April
**Ting: butter lamp container

Lockdown Poetry 7

Cafe Haiku is doing a series on haiku, haibun, tanka or related styles on the subject of the Wuhan virus lockdown which is now daily life for most of the world as the virus spreads to alarming proportions. We will upload one poet’s post at time. If you would like to be part of this please submit to inhaikumumbai@gmail.com. Up to 10 haiku and tanka or 3 haibun, and some illustrations if possible. The deadline is now extended to the end of April 2020. Subscribe to this blog to read the rest of the series and be updated about future series like this one.

The poet in this Lockdown Poetry series is Raamesh Gowri Raghavan.

morning chorus
for once it means
sparrows

work from home
listening to the concalls
of bulbuls

late night
all the stars I didn’t
know existed

ghar bandi
I learn the language
of the breeze

remote working
mother’s nagging replaces
the bosses

Solace

As a child I had a great fancy for atlases. My eyes wandered over the maps, and by some still tender age, I had known the capitals of the world, the principal rivers and the way to pronouce the names of faraway places, like Llanfairpwll or Rajaonarimampianina. There was a delight in tracing the courses of rivers, and to read up the principal wildlife that abounded in the forests they watered.

fisticuffs –
my quarrelling neighbours
still masked

Today, I sit with the old, fading atlas fished out from the top of the bookshelf to where it had been relegated by the more interesting reads of youth, and I trace the death counts in each capital, and the principal shipping routes, now laden with face masks and sanitisers that will come too late for some.

Quarantine

At some point, we had lost measure of the number of days, or the number of kilometres we had walked, who survived and who was martyred to the sun and the heat and dehydration and ostracism and starvation and I don’t know what else. We fished food from dustbins, we drank water from ditches and what clothes we had were bleached to rags, not even fit to rub the blisters on our feet. All we knew was to walk. In beginning it was to walk to our homes because there was no train or bus or truck, but now it was simply to walk to somewhere where we were not unwanted…

self isolation
I count the flowers
on my blanket