Desire's desire

Desire's desire

Desire glides on moonbeams
To shower silver
On supple, rippling waves
Of darting silver streams
Of dark tresses
Of obsessive dreams

Weaves threadbare tales
Of panting longings
Held together by anticipation
In breath held,in gasps

Between the longing
And anticipation
Desire lives and dies
Many reincarnations

To burn on the pyre of fulfillment

Be the moon
Always a little out of reach
And I will live every moment
In the longing
In the perseverance
In the anticipation
In hope

--shubha

P.S. A few lines that came to me in response to a prompt on Shringar Raas on an online poetry group.

Beauty in spaces

Beauty in spaces

Barely present leaves
Leave exposed tree skeletons
Beauty fills spaces

-shubha

Nothing

Nothing

I have nothing to say about nothing
That masquerader , who needs
The very thing he negates

We open empty palms to say we have nothing
Even as we hold space
We examine hurting hearts , claiming we lost all
Even as we gather memories
We let go of past, pain ,declaring them to be nothing
Even as we gain strength, wisdom, experience
From the journey

Nothing gathers
Into his expansive fold
All negations

Yet like all polarities
Hand in hand with everything
Finds his refuge
In love

And serves his purpose
In declaring
Nothing else exists

--shubha

P.S. A few lines that came to me in response to a prompt on the topic nothing ,on an online poetry group, April 

Tracing memory

Tracing memory

Why try and trace the trajectory of a firefly?
Plot a graph of a relationship
As transitory as thought
Transient as us
Flickering, flaring , fading
Embers of memory
Why try to hold , evaluate, grade
Glint of golden shimmer
Evanescent

Except for those points ,
That is cemented in love
That leads us to love

What do we gain , tracing disintegrating plots
Of disappearing feeling
Over time ?
Except for those moments
Tacked into our hearts
By love

--shubha

I miss me

I miss me

I miss me
The me ,I was when we were us
The me, that spiraled around you
To dissolve , wisps of a self, smoke
Where neither you nor me were
Distinct from us

I miss me , that in losing itself,
Found me , a connection
That still tugs at snapped heart strings
A discordant note ,now
I miss, us

--shubha

P.S. Happy to share that this poem was awarded a place in a friendly competition on weekend theme of ,Anatomy of a breakup, on an online poetry group, April

Slow combustion

Slow combustion

Edged in flaming oranges
Red runs rivulets into green
Eagerly licking any residual resistance
To turn each leaf into a mottled
Love story of detachment,sacrifice

And fall lights each tree
Like a glowing sparkler
In celebration
Of slow combustion
Of the past
To ready for rest
And renewal


--shubha

P.S In response to a prompt on renewal on a online poetry group, The Woman Inc. Poetry project 

Composting

Composting

We trade in the residue
Of stale emotions
Spent , chewed out
Malodorous carcass
Of feelings
Well past
Their consumption date

Use this compost
To smear our lens
Of the world, black
Bitter poets ?
We are hawkers
Of curdled pain

And yet , with enough time
With enough patience
With the sprinkling of some love

Perhaps this compost
Of half digested truths
May help grow a flower
Of hope, of beauty
In the spent soil
Of another's mind


--shubha

P.S. Inspired by a searing poem titled Litany by Anu Mahadev , and old poem by my mother