Best Eke Out Poems

One stifling hot day an empty sky tries to eke -  out  - tears, but can – not

all of a sudden
gray clouds gather and thicken . . .
a downpour explodes

As if for gladness heaven weeps.
One lone frog through a puddle leaps.
Small creatures take...

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There you go again, you “Cyber Brat”!
There is “no such website”? What is that?

First you lead me through a wild web maze;
I Google, then succumb to your craze.

What happens if I hit “delete”?
Will my work vanish, incomplete?

Or do you wish to cast me aside?
I’ll tap...

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~ Papa ~


Dawn broke uneasy o'er damp, dreary lane
Fish markets open, the merchant a-bustle
Hawking his fresh catch to eke out a gain
Daily routine, one of stressed, ceaseless hustle
Perils of prepping each fish for display
Callouses, cuts and old scars that he'd hide
Leathery skin soaked in brine...

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on a sweltering day, I watch the sky
as it tries to eke out tears. . . . 
but it simp ly   can    not

drenched in sweat, too stifled even to stir,
I see grey clouds gathering -
then suddenly explode!

sheets upon sheets of...

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She wakes up before dawn. Mounts 
her cardbox cubicle on the pavement
at a street corner. It is chilly and windy.

Without delay she pours cooking oil 
into the aluminum container perched 
on a three-legged stand under which
there are popping flames of fire.  

In the yellow...

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Genealogy
                 —The beginning of a family tree—

For my great, great grandfather was a son of a slave,  
he also was the slave, 
and he grew up with a...

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illanelle: Whose voice so insistent and so early to whine

(I have just found a poem I wrote three days before I was tossed up
and knocked down by a speeding car while I was mid-way on a zebra-
crossing on an entry-road to a mosque. I had...

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Nature Is Stubborn


See where its siblings are abundantly born
You will concede Nature is wisely stubborn;

On a parched desert that gives no reward
Cactus’s juicy, naked legs shoot upward.

Temperamental grass, like tresses or locks
Eke out a living breaking into hard rocks.	

Corals quarrelling with coldness of brine,
Sprout under...

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Acute advice for those* who would be King from the THIRUK-KURAL: Valiarithal - K475
[*like presidents, prime and chief ministers, dictators or even modern-day "emperors" under the guise of revolutionary leaders of oppressed peoples]

Note: In this the 48th Canto, Valluvar is back - from the purely...

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Signature

 Append the seal on the opening glee
 Of performance agog with clapping drums,
 The cylindrical bell calling to spirituous mundi
 Screaming flew about in the air;
 Perched on ears
 And pecked on fertile hearts,
 Consider not the frightened feet
 Aching at commencement,
 Wind to...

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Wandering And Loafing thither-stunned I knew,
Scorching sweat-and a grim creature view,
Aye troubled and loaded vista of misery,
Swirling with abjectness seeming weary,
 
Nor they stand upright neither they sit calm,
Where they where ,never in placid nay in ominous realm,
Prepare for prepare on this abominable flame of...

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Privilege
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who has written eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in "Lessons for a Barren Population."

No, I will never know
what you saw or what you felt,
thrust into the maw of Eternity,

watching the...

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As we aspire a new day
We believe we are all like you all
And as you experince another day
The consequence will demand a teacher in you all.

As we move on with the time
We retrieve we were once like you all
And as you live every moment
The foregone...

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When a precedent-busting pandemic is palling around the world 
when its concomitant panic and pain freak out
it is your fine figures that are unflinchingly unfurled
e'en as proctective gears barely eke out.

Isolation wards owe you diligence and devotion
ICU hours witness your will and willingness in motion
solely...

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Silence morphs the call of falling dusk
Gathering under fiery skies, 
Stilled leaves in somber silence hang
Moping at the darkness that plies.

Dusty paths the home-bound cattle plod
Syrupy chirping of birds in flight, 
Smoke from the earthen ovens pause
Wistfully staring at twilight.

Frenzied bats eke out their weary...

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