I match steps
As we walk
One little detail
Escapes my eyes
My longer feet protrude
They may touch the finish line
First
You notice though
You always do
A tug
At my sleeve stops me
In my tracks
You stop too
I try everything to no avail
You cannot watch me struggle
And rush to help
You always do
Your eyes cut the feet to size
Perfect
Being equal
I hear a proposal
that starts with a ‘send’
and ends with the same.
When have I not sent?
Only that I try to recall
what I had sent
and fail miserably.
I feel out of stock
all of a sudden.
I feel, she is much
more capable than my giving.
There are chances,
I may not even understand
how much
she will return.
I am failing at present
on ‘how much she can’.
More at http://daipayannair.wordpress.com.
For years cars wouldn’t drive
down our street, even in broad daylight,
pigeons and sparrows would hang
out on the telephone wires above our house,
a yellow and brown triple decker with
concrete steps and a mahogany-colored,
foyer, the door to the building
was never locked and would swing open
when the occasional truck drove
by carrying materials for new homes far
from our street, a different neighborhood
with tree-lined sidewalks, pristine parks
with inviting playgrounds, cool sprinklers
and welcoming benches to watch the world,
go by, cars would be near, parked and gleaming
in the sun, neighbors would gather to chat as their
children ran with abandon in the park, chasing
pigeons and each other until the street lights came
on and it was time to go home for dinner,
back to the two-car garages and the cars on
the street at the end of the day, glistening
now under the stars, silent sentries of the
homes and people who live in them, while
our street is empty, vacant and unguarded.
medical advances only offer slim chances
like raffle tickets loaded with unpleasantness
empty your bank account, ride at your own risk
side effects outnumber the therapeutic promises
while “quality of life” is given homage so glibly
the oncologist is just trying to make a living
“survive my poisons and you’ve got it made”
decades of stagnant statistics
masquerading as great progress
walk jog run swim for the cure
Galen remedies dare you to try
American medicine delights in self-adulation
everyone smiling on the evening news report
—–
Galen was a Dark Ages physician. Burns were often treated by pouring hot oil on them. Survival was very much in question. Galen once wrote that his methods worked in nearly every instance, or sometimes the patient just died.
Three men
sit in front
of a shop
shuffling whistling
dreaming in the sum
three men
I don’t remember faces
simply three whispering
shuffling shutting
sitting
as the milling crowds
swaying heavily under
weight of traffic
three who are constant
only in numbers.
Some said he was a hero
with bulletproof chest,
defused mines with a foot.
Others said he was a wife
beater, giving her cheeks bruises
like they were a knot in wood.
Others said he treated his
kids as if they were made
of eggshells.
Some said he beat his
neighbours until their bodies
were like jam inside.
Others said he’s buried without
fault. Some said the soil refused
to cover him up, such was his bile.
More at http://www.gculshaw.co.uk.
Around here they all like to say, “it’s spitting snow,”
as if they had somehow invented the concept,
even the weatherman says it, but they fail to run
with the idea, “it’s spitting snow” suggests a figure
this large indelicate being, the “it” in the phrase,
hovering over the day, spitting down on us, perhaps
out of disgust with us, or perhaps just playing with us,
his mouth partially full of flakes, he puckers up
and gives us this weather and a saying we like to say
surrounded, as we are, by his baggy grey clothes
and this bitter cold, his cold shoulder to us as he
tries to think of what else he can get away with next.
Sometimes I speak in figment
allowing the simulacrum of life
splashes of image, hints
of rumor ruin my day.
I move as if in the fight
of my life when I am alone
with my surging thoughts.
Real life, what is actually going
on around me, sits back, shaking
its head, marveling that I always
fall for imaginations.
Choose to perish
when I love you the most.
Other moments won’t be
quite favorable
and all moments aren’t ‘moments’
for humans
who know how to hate.
I will either forget your death
or remember it
to the extent of isolation.
I will cage you in glass
and claim, I have preserved you.
You will smile
the most handsome smile,
even more than the one
when you were alive.
How can I let live
and how can you expect
to prolong your stay
when you had me make you
so fragile.
More at http://daipayannair.wordpress.com.
spring break
on leafless branches
fallen snow
More at https://twitter.com/Haikuintraining.