In daughter a river seen I had,
Wee bit homeward tried to wean I had.
It’s so hard to say goodbye to her,
With clenched fist, home lush green seen I had.
Her life sea-bound imagined I had,
A live stream beneath sun seen I had.
The banks looking bare, she coursing far,
Home, not so love-less lean, seen I had.
Eyes homeward, life marine seen I had,
Her journey riverine seen I had.
Heart anchored to the birth-bound old shore,
The rest turning saline seen I had.
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Musings | 27.09.2026| daughter, goodbye, home, river, Quatrain
Based on a Muktak (as under) in Gujarati by Darshak Aacharya: Along with two stanzas added in anapaest meter.
Dikree mañ meiñ nadee bhali hatee,
Aitle to ghar taraf vali hatee.
Dekree ne kem karavuñ avajo?
Dost, muthee aitale vali hatee.
Manmade aids making life lazier,
Guys (girls too) no wiser get than were.
Intellect getting brown,
Memory going down,
Gadgets on given job,
Their master lazy blob
Humankind-- a door-knob sunk in chair
Lead life of utter ease
What with the toys that please,
Muscles worn, brain cells gray getting rare.
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Happenings | 09.07.2017 | intellect, irony, life, men, Limerick
Research shows that human intelligence is falling since 19th century whilst Artificial Intelligence (AI) is threatening to surpass human’s. Man for long believed that he was smarter than his ancestors. Yet, it seems it is no longer true. But for various artificial aids of modern gadgets, mental abilities have undergone significant decline since the Victorian era. It seems genes no longer drive intelligence, this ditty set in anapaest meter laments.
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Man reacts to rain in a variety of ways often finding a fault with it. When the season's rain is late in coming, he is no longer choosy and wants it just to rain in what so way. Yet, when it rains enough, he tends to become somewhat hard to please and fussy. However, this ghazal, set in an Anapaest meter, has its own idea what it can be truly called rain.
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What wets all my within I call rain,
What makes her envy green I call rain.
I’ve seen rains cleanse and scour all around,
What makes her a teen queen I call rain.
Rain may make the rivers overflow,
What lets me her heart win I call rain.
Rain may make her all wet from without,
What can make her heart keen, I call rain.
Rain can turn deserts to oasis,
If love seeds sprout therein, I call rain.
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Happenings | 05.07.2026 | green, heart, love, rain, Ghazal
Romance craves wide enough space to dance,
Neighbours as need betwixt them good fence,
For love is a river, pool nor pond,
Apart stand banks though each to each fond…
Let breeze from heaven blow ever hence.
As two mutual cups fill, drink from own,
Let love leave leisure time all alone,
Though close by, alone stand strings of lute
To quiver quite in sync or all mute,
Harmony hails one’s very own tone.
Together, but hang no close to heart,
Pillars of a temple stand apart,
Oak, Cypress that so taller are made,
Seldom can grow in each other's shade,
Stay apart, playing apportioned part.
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Musings | 05.03.2006 | freedom, love, Quintain
Note: Original by Kahlil Gibran, interpretation done in anapaest meter, Quintain (limerick) in construction, not in mood.
If I see balmy bliss more than bane,
Every leaf filled with fresh new wonder,
Each cloud an omen of copious rain,
The new world would nudge me to ponder…
The dismal would still bestir my brain,
The bizarre would give me boundless joy
To muse if I were a child again--
A wide-eyed wonder-struck little boy!
And for sure, I was just so of late--
As one hopes to be in his eighties,
Lovely did the world look, worth a wait,
Were I bestowed brand new pair of eyes?
A new stance has taught me how to see,
What so far was tunnel look to me.
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Sonnet | 15.03.2017 | child, life, lovely/beautiful, world
Note: Set in anapaest tri-meter. And it was so despite my glaucoma-caused constrained peripheral vision.
Garland of fragrant buds in my neck,
Saffron-mixed sandal paste softly smells,
Upon chest cuddles heart-stealing love,
Heaven’s happiness here as if dwells.
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Translation (quatrain, anapaest meter) | 31.08.2025 | heaven, woman
Note: Here is a verse (in Rathoddhata meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). The poet lapses in imagination: A garland of fragrant buds is in neck, the saffron-mixed sandal paste on body, and she, who abducts your heart, hugs like a garland herself. Ah, it is as if heaven has descended down. Here is the transliteration:
Maalati shirasi jrmbhanot-mukhee
Chandanam vapushi kumkum-anvitam |
Vakshasi priyatamaa manoharaa
Svarga eva parishishta aagatah || 49 ||
On fair ways of life what can wind not,
Counterfeit coins their way can find not.
Your shadows do if find the sun strong,
Sure, with me the way would ye wind not.
Hardships hover on all human life,
Sans tough tests man’s today defined not.
How will ye change the ways of this world
If the set-in-stone kind, ye grind not.
Even on chasing this heedless time,
Today nor morrows may we mind not.
How strange--maybe this is His revenge
That fair fruits of deeds man may find not.
Is it fair, faulty, gods only know--
Ways to cheat self have they divined not.
It’s justice that those with wayward ways
On straighter ways their way can wind not.
O beware, coins may be out of way,
To ban notes crooks would be inclined not.
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Ghazal |04.07.2025| people, life
Note: The poem is set in anapaest meter.
Joy’s like dewdrops on lotus leaf
If you know not life’s subtle brief.
It’s dawn if I open eyes,
If not, a darkling night,
The wise whose sun would not rise,
There reigns enduring blight
All along, life of buts and if,
Joy’s like dewdrops on lotus leaf.
Life’s echo spreads no far
Like haply chirping birds,
As footsteps on sands are,
As on deathbed last words,
In rivers as if flotsam adrift,
Joy’s like dewdrops on lotus leaf.
Here today or on mountain cliff,
Joy’s mirage, dews on lotus leaf.
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Rhyme |13.02.2025| joy, happiness, mirage
Note: In anapaest metre.
If this world were not such a sweet lure
Pulling me in like earth’s gravity,
And for long-- many a life’s allure,
To get trapped being man’s destiny,
And this life being a virtual dream
In a world ever so elusive,
If dreams dreamt were not real as we deem,
Who’d even dream in this world to live?
Yet, in this life’s ‘river of return’,
Though dreams dreamt turn to be all so vain,
Man returns-- I know not what to earn--
As if by the very return train.
And God casts His loaded dice again,
Sure, not a single dice falls in vain.
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Sonnet | 02.03.08, revised July 2024 | life, Maya
Port’s note: That these conflicts and contradictions of world called Maya continue to confuse an average seeker is not in doubt. What is not clear is how he reacts to them. Let the wise say, this world is vain. Vain maybe for man, not for Destiny. The sonnet is set in anapaest meter.
Markets smile, deep pockets make fat pile,
And when frown, fortunes come tumbling down.
In play of plump coffers
There’s no place for paupers—
Sophomore Dumpty’s tend to crash crown,
They prosper that possess wile and guile.
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Happenings |24.12.2022| Humour, Sestet
Poet’s note: It was as if only yesterday Elon Musk was crowned the king of fortunes at top of the pile. Today, his net worth has dropped by $ 135 billion. The rest of the tech tsars also watch their net worth getting depleted. India’s Gautam Adani at $110 billion has risen to third place. From almost nowhere in sight now appears Louis Vaitton to claim first place at $ 159 billion. The sestet is set in anapaest meter, and a mirror-like rhyme scheme. What we have here is just a Sestet, not a Sestina.
Wishes get wilted but we still live,
In love getting jilted we still live.
Excuse nor alibi need be there,
Ahead, by life goaded we still live.
In face of cooling ash of the dead,
Even on a deathbed we still live.
Good and bad happening all along,
Forgetting all the bad we still live.
Spikes prick plucking the fruits, pruning plants,
But fruits of labour-led we still live.
If just for the firewood of own pyre,
Leading life death-dreaded we still live.
Life is lent to find life’s why and what,
If not that, just for bread we still live.
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Ghazal |18.12.2022| life, leaving
Poet’s note: Once a person crosses the mark of 80, he tends to ponder a lot on life and death. This Ghazal, set in anapaest meter, was born of such stirrings.
Locating door D-75
Of a large colony on a drive,
At last close, ah D-74!
I must be right at destiny’s door.
But the next turns out B-68!!
What, lost at the very Pearly Gate?
So I felt midway through my poem—
Roots in air, hangs down to earth tree’s stem!
Old wisdom, the time turns when adverse,
I recalled oft-quoted holy verse
From Bhagavad-Gita’s holiest text
Talking of Tree of Life, but what next?
At wits’ end and left with not a clue,
You hope some divine help might rescue.
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Tongue-in-cheek sonnet |09.02.2022|
Poet’s note: a sonnet of sort set in anapaest meter.
The dreams sure were dreamt— by one alone,
Not by both and sure failed to reach peak.
Let’s now build together our dream house—
Bring own base, cement, mortar, each brick.
Let all need temples to placate God,
Not us; hope, He has not made us meek.
If He’s made us in His tall image,
Petitions, pleadings would make Him sick.
Let sorrows never dare to dare us,
Let’s frown at shallow joys, call them freak.
The point made if failed a point to pick,
Sure, such a poem would never click.
Our first words if were in Mother tongue,
To our child let them not sound like Greek.
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Set in anapaest meter, it has little in common with the original.
Ghazal |01.02.2022, revised April 2022|
To enjoy what we have if is joy,
Waiting for what we’ve not too is joy.
One plus one makes two, tells a maths rule,
Minus one makes lonely, says life’s school.
In life’s play, I know one close that came,
What if that same someone plays foul game?
In life if everyone’s not found friendly,
Where you find a sea not so salty?
If life’s spent in endless search of joys,
We forget to grow past boyhood toys.
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Ghazal |09.10.2021| life, joys
Poet’s note: The five couplets of this Ghazal, set in anapaest meter, talk about joys and quirks of life.
Those that praise my pen too far and quick,
Innocent but perhaps make me weak.
Those that scraps and crumbs about me keep,
Slights and snubs of theirs do make me sick.
Journey’s end— end of all juice we sip,
Thanks Lord, ways of life winding to keep.
Willingly whose shoulders bear huge load,
Repeated rounds on load alas reap.
Showing me the way— where, how to walk,
Stumbling stones do love me all so deep.
Clueless worshipping chants those that rant,
Not vain is devotee’s temple trip.
Better be I feel my bare ego,
Not those that pride’s false airs puffed-up keep.
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In anapaest tri-meter, this piece was inspired by a Gujarati poem by Vicky Trivedi, but is no translation.
Ghazal |07.10.2021| Introspection
Poet’s note: World is nothing but illusion, they say. The ways of this world elude comprehension. What we see is no reality, and the reality is never seen. Apparent contradictions after all may not be so. This poet has a point to make on our world duality.
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