Best Anapaest Poems
I recall, to our life when she came—
In early nineties one unknown day,
Few did know for long years: who she was—
Her mission, and what she wished to do,
And someone called it an Info Age:
Internet, e-mails and e-media—
Some of them more social than are ants,
In tone and temper unfairly free—
And info-knowledge spread sans limit,
But in just two decades we feel drowned.
Overload of info, opinions:
Social sites tweeting, tubes, sundry sites,
Searching sites, kindling books, what not apps,
Bits and bytes gagging us over board!
An ocean of Info, every shade,
Informing less and confusing more,
Now telling, and contradicting then;
But time was we had next to nothing.
Bits, bytes, nor statistics info is,
Nor info knowledge is— never was.
News nigh fake, more of views than are news,
Far from truth, confuse more than give clues,
Verified by none but someone's whim,
Twenty four by seven, news and news!
Ignorance a maiden of pure bliss,
No one has questioned camouflaged views,
Neut media morphing unto sour dream,
Even views are now of varied hues—
Fruits of a fertile mind, partial pen,
Better was bliss of ignorant Zen!
Ere, soul of Info to inform was.
And inform it sure did without doubt,
Today it seems to drown us in doubt,
I doubt if the curious little bird,
Even if ravenous hungry is,
I f any a worm would ever catch!
Time was when info an asset was,
And people hungered for a bare byte.
From heaps of husk and shells, piles of chaff,
It is hard today to garner grain.
Maiden sure she’s no doubt, no more shy,
Like peels of onions she hides nigh!
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Happenings | 16.03.2017 |
Poet’s note: This piece is not a typical ode. It is nine syllabic three feet anapaest, and largely a blank verse.
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.
Each line is composed of two Anapaest metres and a final Spondee metre.
Come to me and put thine sweet eyes
on this note that thus came, e’en tries
to put slander within my mind
of the old and bad trite stale kind.
What false lines do impinge thy name
for such claims do, love, make thee blame
in the splitting of so great pair,
the well known Lord and Lady Blare.
Such words I will not yea believe
since without gens how they deceive.
The hot fire of this flame’s flambeau
will burn scurrilous page I know.
Then with glaive on this pole I’ll take
their head clean off for they name’s sake.
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|
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 chatter around put on the mute,
I hailed heart to listen to soul’s lute,
Creative spikes to spurt,
Mind mindful and alert,
More present, systems to get reboot;
And then heard a voice curt,
Don’t daisies rise from dirt?
Let winds blow from every unknown route,
Let thousand sprouts from all around shoot,
From chaos is born calm,
Chaos has its own charm,
Let a thousand and one loud owls hoot.
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Tongue-in-cheek | 07.02.2017 |
Poet's note: A piece that I'd call an extended limerick, is set in anapaest meter.
You may laugh all aloud, smile a smile,
Happiness it is your very own,
If you make an unknown sad face smile,
Joy and bliss of yours greater has grown.
Fine, you bring back lost smile on the face
Of a long suffering distressed soul,
But if you add here your kindly grace,
True joy shall blossom from you as whole.
Try meet someone with a smiling face.
You may win him, let's say, by one half,
But if he joins, and smile turns to laugh,
It's as if you've served a winning ace.
Let your entire anatomy smile,
Let body’s each cell break into dance,
Let the whole contagion spread a mile,
Not a doubt, failure has not a chance.
If green goes grey from this earthen ground,
An eclipse as if has shadowed life,
Sepulchral eerie hush all around,
Friends as if desert you in grave strife,
Me alone if dwells in a lone bed,
Everything if looks sad and sedate,
Let my smile brighten up, show its red,
See that no smile stays locked in closed gate.
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Musings | 01.02.15 |
Port's note: In three-foot anapaest meter
No more than a toddler when I was,
Old enough on own that can when chill—
To play with siblings an option still,
Pleasure still to play with mother was.
‘Hay look Ma, where am I?’
Pretending when to hide
I'd stay close on her side,
A ruse to get her eye!
Earful of her sweet words, or any,
A touch of loving hands upon me;
It was no jealousy,
Nor sibling rivalry,
Well, a seed ah of love and well sown,
I still feel that love— a grandpa grown.
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Musings from far | 13.03.2017 |
Poet’s Note:
1. There are certain toddler memories of the family, siblings, and of mother that remain fresh for long, long till one becomes a parent and even grandparent.
2. The poem is set in anapaest meter, lines are a combination of three and two-foot meter.
Old breath no life has tolerated,
Strange, most change finds itself deserted.
Odd, this friendship I’ve cultivated,
By fighting with self fosters ahead.
It sounds so weird, my steadfast head
By ceaseless changes has been so made.
The coolness by scorching me I’ve forged,
Funny, it’s now hotly coveted.
The success that lets me stay seated,
Strange, to a-migrant-me was wedded.
I’ve always drained myself from within,
Only thence was this depth conceded.
Peculiar, what the world in me liked,
By appreciating all was added.
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This piece in anapaest tri-meter was inspired by a Gujarati poem by Vicky Trived, but is no translation.
Ghazal |06.10.2021| Introspection
Poet’s note: Be it in spirituality or in poetry, it is a journey to reach one’s Self. Of course, it may be argued that poetry is the means to reach out to the world through the philosophy of understanding it and the self. This Ghazal, Is Not It Strange, highlights the contradictions experienced in this journey.
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.
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.
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.
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This elegy set in a trimester anapaest breaks the pattern at times when the memories filled with emotion rush. The last line of the quatrain is deliberately kept a foot shorter.
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Thou wert frail, frailer still was thy fate,
And had reasons to feel a bit riled,
Thy sad eyes must have looked out for me,
O my ill-fated child.
For I failed, be there to welcome thee,
Thou had too little time left to wait,
To be held in a father’s fond arms,
And left me rue my fate.
How it hurts not to hold thee to heart,
Nor welcome thee into my small world,
Let me offer this grief of a rose—
A bit frail, feeble, curled.
Now amidst a dark pile of sad thoughts
In a time-warped fast vanishing wave,
I am left to reflect how thy soul
Must have felt, till my grave.
Ye had come to our life long ago,
A bit wan, pallid infant so pale,
Even then cruel fate served a punch,
A gust turned to a gale!
As I hold out to thee this frail rose,
I do wonder wide-eyed, a bit wild,
Can a page turn in time to feel good?
No, my guilt’s piled my child.
To confess and admit to my guilt,
In my plight, having failed a dad’s due,
Let me wish thy new life rosy pink,
The wretched me whilst rue.
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Musings |03.05.2024| child, daughter, missing you, remember, rose, Elegy
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.
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.