Best Marketplace Poems
Bits 'n Pieces of my soul
to be downloaded by the Marketplace
(or souled for a pittance at your request)
Doth thou find me Likeable?
God Bless my Fakebook Self!
All the shiny bots N pieces I've manicured just for you?
Why, they're just a miniscule reflection
An endless mirror,
scattered pixellated gems--
An electronic finger pointing back at Me.
The manicured, curated Me I've
divvied up for you to see, Yes--
but Nonetheless, you didn't protest;
Or did Thou?
“The Marketplace”
Today the marketplace is open.
Ready with crisp linens for handfuls of gold.
Hordes of buyers stomp the asphalt
scurrying by and through to the next.
I have worn my smile.
My hair is wind-born.
smelling of burnt amber and roses.
My dress, summer silk, covers my flesh -
Tones like island-bronze.
And I have worn my smile.
I banter over prices, politely.
Others haggle, fussing, who is next.
I, alone in my company, solo with passing
memories of your hands on my face.
I show everyone my smile.
Evening approaches, hushing the buzz of the crowd.
Memories of you sink into the dark...
falling with my head upon my pillow.
I remember walking the marketplace with you
and how you made me smile.
My loving cousin
Nongmaithem Manihar Singh ,
had not seen for decades;
how time can sting,
after his passing I went
to his home at Yairipok Bazar
where memories roam
to attend the Asti sanchay.
That country market place
miles from my house in Imphal
I have not visited for a long time.
During my childhood days
long ago in the sun
I wandered there often
where the small market spun
that was busy only at dusk
selling fresh produce from the fields
and ground.
At the time of his mother's death
more than two decades ago
still it was a traditional marketplace.
My mother her sister had passed away
more than two decades before her
leaving a silence that echoed evermore.
After they left us our bond grew thin
we have not seen each other ;
it's been far too long since than.
That day
the rural landscape had changed
so much from what I remembered,
It felt like a touch.of nostalgia
The market place now was much bigger,
more bright modernised and crowded,
a bustling sight.
I recalled then the old days and my long past,
with memories swirling like leaves in the air.
20.01.2021
Every shot of grief and pain
commences the grand experiment
once again,
delineating material differences
in the various types of neglect,
the techniques and attitudes
that too often lead to violence,
and the denial of blame.
Sadly, it always comes to naught:
bought players
mouthing contrived words,
obeying contrary voices,
concluding with self-serving decisions
determined in advance by
those who buy weak souls
in the marketplace of cowardice.
senryu / senryu series
the marketplace
well-dressed mannequin
speaks to shoppers
~~~~~~~~
without knowing
the well-dressed manneqin
beckons shoppers
~~~~~~~~
eye-speak
the well-dressed mannequin
beckons shoppers
fluid salesman
fools only himself
by sleight-of-mouth
~~~~~~~~~
Will it be the actors?
Will it be the singers?
Or will it be the dancers
Who bring the Gospel
With a twist?
Or will it be the pastors,
The apostles and the prophets,
The teachers and evangelists?
Cut from glass
Cut from flesh
My steel windows peer
From hilltops to the marketplace
Rotary clubs banishing good taste
With taxes to fill up the State
Now following fault lines
To earthquake insure the day, stay awake
Insurance claims fake a new mistake
Numbers surround the climax of fate
Urging paper weights to cover shifting sands
Allow us to stand anew
We can set the game
with new wagers
Economy is but a ribbon of fear
The time is near
To dismantle capital banter and borders
And bring in the new prodigy
Love is tribal wealth
No one hoards
And everyone saves
Because there's nothing to save
Ownership is a flaw
I've seen throughout life
The pompous pilgrimage
That is really a sacrilege
Dismantle all power
That does not serve
A democracy of love
That we can truly earn
The Marketplace of Thought!
Don’t I love who I’m open to - would share soul with (somehow in words -
in poetry, revealing me)? Must I place worth on goods ‘vain’ hawk
to earn a look? Let self-regard be life’s canard! God Loves such cheer?
May I find wealth in other’s health (I pray), by Grace of God’s intent,
not courted rhymes that plague our times, end freedom found in ‘Will of God’
(that lights all life)! Oh, bless the ways God’s muse serves days! Count that enough!
My labor’s mark you think a lark (not worth fool’s ink or up to snuff)?
What you begrudge, I would not judge. I serve my truth! Is it so odd
that’s what I’d share? Your truth is yours if it’s just Coors (in lieu of rent)!
But rent’s still due (my point of view!) I’m happy though to share a beer,
not make you wrong (to me, love’s song!) reciprocate without a squawk.
Life shared’s a chance to change the past, hoist sail up mast, view world like birds!
Long Tooth
October 14th in 2022
Poet's Notes:
Another poem with distant rhyme and note too that each line has an internal rhyme as well! What fun!
Flowers lie upon a grave, innocence dead in a foreign land
The peace shattered like ice when bombs burst in burning sand
Children taken in the prime of life, gone with just a passing glance
As planes fly overhead, circling their targets in a macabre dance
Bombs drop and explode, tearing through a market and a child
The mother drops to her knees, and the crowd becomes wild
As the child shudders, frozen with fear and anguish as he lies
His mother shouts for help, through broken sobs and cries
Cries heard in the hearts of millions, but disregarded by most
As thousands of miles away sits this war’s malevolent host
He speaks of happier times ahead, freedom is on the march
Tell it to the children, whose parents he killed, or is that too harsh?
A criminal speaks to the nation, of dire threats and genocide
Invoking the names of the dead to bring the living to his side
To take up arms against one’s fellow man, to commit atrocities in his name
And with thousands buried in simple graves, with him lies the blame
As good men and women fall in his name for his bloody endeavor
People at home and around the world raise their voices and shout “Freedom! Forever!”
What structure resides
For the apportioning of Love?
What do plastic cards and love
Have in common?
Maybe I can save on output
And get more cost effective returns
My actions are cold, vacant
The windows fog as I stare ahead
Yellow
Red
Green cellphone circuits
To forge intimacy
Circuits I speak
Words flood before I dial
I'm searching for Love
How can this be?
Statistics are miserly
She threw her heel
In anguish
That another woman had loved me
Both were fleeting
Like hurricanes
My brother filed a contract
He wanted Love like a fixture
And became a Lawyer
I'm just a vagabond
The trees speak to me
And I fling wishful ideals
That love could ever last
In the marketplace,
from a woman vegetable vendor
a bazar cow snatched away
a big mustard plant.
She shouted at the cow
rebuking it with the foulest words
she could muster
while the cow relishing it's loot.
An old Street dog,
loving life ,
rested in a shaded corner
looked at the youthful cow
with envy.
TAKE ME TO A MARKETPLACE
Take me to a marketplace
where I can get a rose garden
in exchange of my old pen.
Take me to a marketplace
where I can buy hundreds of trees
with just a handful of seeds.
Take me to a marketplace
where I can trade my old book
with one library nice and good.
Take me to a marketplace
where what I have is so much,
so much more than enough.
In an age of cheap poets and marketplace philosophers,
When words intertwine beautifully but lack depth,
My contemporaries have already given me the greatest reward,
Their indifference, their silence, heavy like a spider’s web.
In a world where applause is the echo of an illusion,
Rise those who believe themselves original,
For they have an audience that claps but does not understand,
And they do not know that true poets live only posthumously.
I wish to be a shadow in the book of time,
To write my words on dead leaves, carried by the wind,
Melancholy as my ink, and my heart as the paper,
To tell my stories in a stream of thoughts.
For what does it mean to be alive, if not to be forgotten?
To leave only a sad echo and a lost smile,
In a world of those who have eyes but do not see,
In a mechanical universe, where souls are mere cogs.
But perhaps one day, when silence will sing,
My words will bloom in the light of dusk,
And they will tell the story of those who were,
Those who wrote silence, while the world screamed.