Clouds

Darkness and Pleonasm

Nonsense Poetry
“Dear giraffes, turn around and look up”, said the moon.
Pleonasm – the use of more words than necessary to convey meaning.
[Source – Pixabay]

*

Dark night, night dark

Like thundering clouds sans lightening

And we missed, skipped the enlightening

Message. “You damn fool, think hard,

You didn’t hear anything?”

Lub-dub, lub-dub, quack-dub,

“Quack dub?” Yes, the darkest darkness

Followed us that we failed to see in the darkness.


Lights off, there was no light!

Scared, we threw our candles away,

Out of fear we trembled,

And threw our matchboxes haphazardly,

A few hit my head, I caught one silently

And hid it in the fish tank for emergency.

(The fish lit a bonfire! They tried to!)


“What?” Madness ruled us, yes, madness!

Madly we wept and stood still in one corner,

Or was it the centre? Uncertain, afraid,

We slept quickly, peacefully and

Woke to see the dark knight

Who had come to return our torch light;

Said, it helped him cross the teetering bridge

Twice, for he came to return our torch light.

Listen, not a lie this, later we heard it, all of us,

The breaking of the teetering bridge

And a desperate goodbye.


“It was the dark knight!” O-but we

Couldn’t see anything for our torch light

Died along with that goodbye-cry,

Both engulfed by the darkness and its hands,

Crushed under its dark feet, that we failed to see

In the darkness. For clarity now

We have all blindfolded ourselves.


After heavy rain, hail storm, whispering winds,

We can now feel some warmth,

Feels like the sun, but who knows-ya,

Not us, for it is impossible to see-ya,

Especially in this darkness. “Ahhh!”

(The one who said ‘ahhh’, rushed away.)

Rushed away? In such darkness?

*


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Moony Clay

Moon’s cloudy carpet.
[Image by Jagriti Rumi]

Now a clear dot… now hazy… mixing with the clouds through and through, then beaming alone gloriously. Splattering moony clay, then rubbing it, greasing with it the deep dark sky.

Mirroring all the romantics and dream-talkers, the moony clay moulds itself to fit into the beholder’s eyes and patient hearts. It listens, nods and registers its reply with the artist.

Moony clay – an assiduous storyteller, slowly moving away – happily builds the wavy waves and like a sand clock shows the slipping time its way.

Singing joyously, dancing leisurely, the moony clay creates and fills the heart with hope, lost in splendour.

See how it re-shapes, re-writes its journey, certain of uncertainty in knowing… in knowing it all. 


Images by Jagriti Rumi


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Lovely

Poem
Fly my lovely!
[Image by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pixabay]

*

Paper like fresh

Paper like crumpled

Paper like white

Paper like light

Isn’t it lovely to match,

To catch,

Freedom and its rhythm?

*

Paper like clouds

Paper like crumpled

Paper like white

Paper like light

Isn’t it lovely to breathe,

To read,

Freedom and its rhythm?

*

Paper like thoughts

Paper like crumpled

Paper like white

Paper like light

Isn’t it lovely to know,

To follow,

Freedom and its rhythm?

*

Paper like paths

Paper like crumpled

Paper like white

Paper like light

Isn’t it lovely to walk,

Towards

Freedom and its rhythm?

*

Paper like you, me

Paper like crumpled

Paper like white

Paper like light

Isn’t it lovely to live,

Immersed in

Freedom and its rhythm?

Isn’t it lovely…?


Listen to Billie Eilish’s Lovely that inspired me to write this poem –


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Nazo’s Simple Magic Trick

Flash Fiction

Nazo, busy reading the flowers (she loved this exercise, it made her “fuller”, that is what she said).
[Source – Pixabay]

Nazo believed in magic. While the stories about djinns and fairies and magic potions made her wonder, the everyday sundry experiences also left her mesmerized. She was a simple person who felt special about simple things like the sun peeping out from behind the dark rainy clouds.

I told her once a sad story, intentionally, I wanted her to cry. It was a made-up tale about a little dog that lost its way home and died of starvation. Before I could make it sound more pathetic, I saw tears in Nazo’s eyes. Mission accomplished, thought I, until Nazo did something magical.  

She asked me about the dog and I fabricated the cute brown dog, with black ears and kohl eyes. Suddenly, Nazo jumped up and started clapping. She told me to follow her and we both ran down to old Mr Tolkien’s house. What I saw there was as mysterious and as astonishing as a miracle.

Nazo went ahead right into Mr Tolkien’s garden and brought a cute brown dog in her arms, it had black coloured ears and kohl eyes. She announced that Mr Tolkien found the starved dog yesterday near the abandoned park and brought him home.  

While coming back, I, filled with a concoction of emotions (specifically foolishness), told Nazo the truth; that it was a fake story and I meant only to make her cry because of her utter belief in magic in life suffocated me. Nazo laughed at me and didn’t say a word. She then hugged me, if I remember correctly.  

After a few days, Nazo gave me a card (she loved making cards), a lovely one with colourful flowers and bright butterflies. She had written a few lines inside, apart from wishing me a happy day, that I can never forget; it read, “Magic is real for me, maybe because I try to see things from the earth’s point of view – a beautiful blue-green lonely planet – something magical is happening for sure”.  

Since then, I too have started to believe in magic.


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A Seeming

Flash Fiction

That I am and that I am not is a seeming. Life is a seeming just like its partner, death.

*

A beautiful sunrise/ sunset… a beautiful seeming.
[Source – Pixabay]

Rosaline, sitting on the branch of a huge tree, was collecting the passing clouds. Though friends with the clouds, she didn’t like to see them at night, maybe because she also collected stars.

The day-night cycle confused her. Grandma’s solution “you’ll understand it once you become a big girl” didn’t help Rosaline at all.

And so she started living in different worlds – the-bright-blue-sky-world, the-mischievous-cloudy-world, the-paper-boat-rainy-world, the-sparkling-starry-world, the-moon-pie-world, the-ghostly-pitch-black-world…

Two worlds sometimes merged into one and formed something unique.

Whichever world Rosaline was in, she was always excited to live it fully. Happily, she always announced early in the morning “today I’ll be in the-mischievous-cloudy-world’ or ‘give way to Rosaline, the-moon-pie-world awaits her.”

Lost in her myriad worlds, she lived madly. She even recorded her visits to these wonderful worlds.

She was proud to be the youngest and the oldest member of her family, youngest by age and oldest by the many visits she made to these worlds.

On her 92nd visit to the crunchy-autumn-leaves-world, she died. She fell from a huge tree.

Her last words were, “Grandma, you need to plus 22 more worlds to break my record”.

*

A crunchy-autumn-leaves-world.
[Source – Pixabay]

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A Dream of Twin Rainbows

Poem
One, two… lucky you!
[Image by Jagriti Rumi]

*

My imagination is strong and hence I can see

The waterfalls, mesmerizing clouds and the ever working bees;

I am very much alive with a working clock

Hanging on the earthen, painted, plastic wall saying ‘tick-tock-tick-tock’;

My ears don’t bleed anymore and though my eyes are shy to blink,

I have learned to bar the command and hide behind a paused wink.

Master shouts and thunderbolts hit the wall,

Faking to cry and tremble, I try to make the cage fall.

Yes! I live in a cage! But I have a dream, a dream of twin rainbows.

I will one day fly towards it, crossing the ocean of dead vows,

There I will soulfully sing and freely dance and just be me…

My imagination is strong and hence I can see.

*


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Creepers Meet the Trees

Green love!
[Source – Pixabay]

I believe in the waves. Everything in the universe is in the form of waves. The connection never breaks. Reverberation happens. Do you also feel it? It is amazing, but most of the times beyond our understanding, often leaving us frustrated.

Like when something is in front of us, we know that it is but we can’t find it.  

I saw something that caught my attention, I saw some creepers climbing high and meeting the trees’ branches. The light green coloured creepers united with the brown coloured branches and the contrast between these colours and the dark green coloured tree-leaves looked so perfect, as if the scene was painted.

I don’t know if the union was meant to be or not. It was just wonderful, the creepers slowly crept on to the big trees; first the trunk and then the branches and then making a green velvety blanket with the leaves, like a slow wave.

*

Capturing sunshine.
[Source – Pixabay]

The clouds move beautifully you know. They dance. They don’t stay at one place. We should also learn it. I mean we should keep in mind the fact that nothing is permanent, everything shifts from being to non-being. The clouds allow the sun rays to pass through it, only sometimes the sun rays decide to stay back and be with the clouds. The clouds change in colour when they are about to rain.

What a grand way to leave, to change into droplets and become a seed and come alive and then to meet the sun rays once again.  

When a dancer performs and a singer sings and a musician plays and a painter paints and an architect builds, and a scientist thinks and a mother smiles – it is in a wave form. Like the velvety green wave we see in the forest, when the creepers meet the trees.

*


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Rain! Rain!

It is raining music and the birds are loving it.
[Image by Lisa McCarty from Pixabay]

Though I know it is not raining

I hope it did; I am carrying

Colours of life that I wish I could

Mix in me, and then surely I would

Live. Often do people say

‘It was raining on that evil day’

I hope they won’t, because they don’t

Understand rain. They don’t feel rain.


Rainfall is the dancing of clouds and

The song of the Nature. The land

Becomes alive and happy; ‘I’ becomes

‘We’, playing with the paper boats

And all the musicians taking notes

Rain rain, rain-rain.

*


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