Bombay Poems

List of New Poems

PM	Poem Title	Poet	Form	Categories
	To pass	Dominic Middleton	Free verse	bombay, dad, good night, mum,
	THIS DOCTOR HAS NO PATIENCE	JAN ALLISON	Limerick	bombay, body, health, humorous,
	Universal Love	Jack Ellison	Limerick	bombay, love,
	IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XII	T Wignesan	Dramatic Monologue	bombay, heartbroken, longing, lost love,
	All Day Tomorrow	William Coyne	Limerick	bombay, humorous,
	Holly Day Cheer Oy Vey	matthew harris	Political Verse	bombay, celebration, christmas, games, hair,
	They walk amongst us	Silent One	Sonnet	bombay, angel, appreciation, tribute,
	In response to IF Poetry Contest	Michael Robinson	Rhyme	bombay, meaningful, poetry,
	Born in Bombay	Mark Morris	Prose	bombay, absence, angel, beautiful, black
	No-One is Perfect	Dedu Son	Limerick	bombay, fun,
	Mother	Brendan J. Simons	Rhyme	bombay, mother, mother son, parents,
	A very quick quack	Taoi Chanan	I do not know?	bombay, analogy,
	Two Pairs of Shoes	Judy Valko	Rhyme	bombay, humorous,
	Beware the Coming of the Minx	Alexander Blackie	Verse	bombay, cat, fun, giggle, humorous,
	A Beautiful Sailing Ship	Alfred Berggren	Rhyme	bombay, beauty,
	Late Summer Nights Dream at the Cat in the Hat	george seal	Couplet	bombay, imagination, nonsense,
	Week 1 - Brian's Poet of Note - 'Jack Gilbert'	Brian Johnston	Free verse	bombay, joy, life, love,
	winter's film star	stephen pennell	Villanelle	bombay, romantic,
	HE WAS A FLOP	JAN ALLISON	Limerick	bombay, age, body, humorous, lust,
	Baseball Trash Can Cats Vs Downtown Stray	Robert Stoner Jr	Rhyme	bombay, baseball, fun, poetry,
	Alcohol Closet	Jimmy Qin	Free verse	bombay, addiction, child, dad, destiny,
	The lady from Bombay	Jude Kyrie	Free verse	bombay, appreciation, career, teacher,
	Mince Meat Pie No Lie	James Horn	Couplet	bombay, allegory, analogy,
	Carols	Dennis Brickles	Lyric	bombay, december,
	BAWDY BEVERAGES	Dan Cwiak	Free verse	bombay, drink, fantasy, humor,
	The Wound That Never Heals	Robert Ronnow	Verse	bombay, christian, husband, mother, music,
	Right on Time	quincy cannon	Blitz	bombay, beauty, cute love,
	Rumor Has It	Dr.Ram Mehta	Free verse	bombay, fun,
	Bombay Duck	Nigel Fox	Free verse	bombay, food,
	GL Trestrail and Co Ltd	Keith Trestrail	Couplet	bombay, nostalgia,
	The Bombay Grocery	Dr.Ram Mehta	Rhyme	bombay, fun, humor, , 9th
	Slums of the world	jan oskar hansen	Blank verse	bombay, anger, angst, betrayal, class,
	Gods, Rains and Traffic	Rohit Pandey	Rhyme	bombay, emotions, god, rain,
	A Story My Mother Told Me	Scribbler Of Verses	I do not know?	bombay, forgiveness, freedom, friendship, grandmother,
	Limerick: Once a measly Miser in Mumbai	T Wignesan	Limerick	bombay, humorous,
	The murder of Civilisation	steven cooke	Free verse	bombay, patriotic, freedom,
	For the World's Best Boss	RIMA ANIL.NAIK	Rhyme	bombay, thank you, tribute, me,
	haiku 16	Debbie Guzzi	Haiku	bombay, holiday, nature,
	Were We There At All	John Posey	Rhyme	bombay, love, heart, heart,
	Friendship's Gifts	Debbie Guzzi	Verse	bombay, devotion, friendship,
	A Bucket List for Two	Joe Flach	Rhyme	bombay, song-
	First of May	Deborah Burch	Limerick	bombay, adventure, childhood, fantasy, hope,
	No More Olives	Robert Pettit	Rhyme	bombay, food,
	a cooks battle	jan oskar hansen	Blank verse	bombay, funny, old, old,
	The lies of fathers	RAINER LOVEIAM	I do not know?	bombay, introspection,
	LISTENING TO JOAN BAEZ	Debasish Datta	Free verse	bombay, nostalgiavoice, voice,
	Drifting Through Time	Jeremy Moore	Prose Poetry	bombay, lifenight, time, dark, dark,
	Darrin's Troubles	Robert Pettit	Rhyme	bombay, dedication, funny, nostalgia, cousin,
	I Am Happy and Gay	Joe Flach	Limerick	bombay, funny
	MAIL PUZZLE	Sidney Beck	Light Verse	bombay, funny, places,

Bombay Poem Example

The Wound That Never Heals

Science can’t save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare’s 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my student who lays blacktop in the off season
Shakespeare bellyaching about dying without her love
a feeling foreign to a modern adolescent sensibility
although many teens are pretty far gone searching
for their mothers or fathers in their dazed lovers’ eyes.
Which is why we call it “the wound that never heals.”
Or the lesion that’s always lengthening. And bleeding.

Muslim fundamentalists and their Christian counterparts
are a mystery to me. Pews and prayer rugs, the airless
indoor environment of religious worship, reading
scriptures, hypnotized by hymns and fainting from staring
at candles through stained glass windows, almost certain
the preacher is faking his certainty about the afterlife.
It’s not my problem. A more immediate concern:
receding gums and tooth extractions, swollen joints,
poor lubrication and circulation, wave after wave
of viral infection, the occasional antibiotic-resistant
bacterial attack, usually urinary, and who knows
what internal organs are dividing and conquering
without mercy or cease, i.e. the wound that never heals.

It is wise not to overvalue your continued existence,
good not to be innumerate, unable to compare
a mere 80 years with say 6.0 x 109 or all of time
(to date) times the multiverse. Conversely,
it is interesting all of space and most of history is contained
in your little mind (realizing of course it’s just a map
of the cosmos not the cosmos itself, or is it?). I’m
unable to wrestle free, tongue in that cavity
and locked in my memories, so separate and disparate
from the biomass in the crosswalks, even my spouse.
Alone, so alone, even your doctor can only devote
limited thought to your situational mortality through
the redress of poetry—also a wound that never heals.

Snow for eternity, that’s what this February’s been.
All to the good, for someone it’s the final February
so enjoy it to the extent you can. By that I mean joy.
Joy at birth. Joy at death. All joy. All times. Anyway.
That was Shakespeare’s message: even tragedies are comedies. 
May, a Buddhist, chants each morning.
Her husband, Marc, who’s Jewish, plays league tennis.
Their son, Aaron, will soon make Eagle scout.
How does it relate to your wound that never heals?
Luck runs out. For D.H. Lawrence in New Mexico
or Ulysses S. Grant in Ohio or Yasujiro Ozu in
Tokyo or Satyajit Ray in Bombay or Rabindranath
Tagore in Bangalore or at the Battle of the Atlantic in the Azores.

The night is a poultice, winter or summer solstice.
My anonymity will not effect the anomie ghettoside
seeing for myself how season by season
vacations and accomplishments accumulate, late in life
and early on, sunrise over mountains or moonrise over Bronx.
Masturbator, prisoner of war. Hospice of the Holy Roman Empire.
Numerous blue notes: the 3 flat, 7 flat, 5 flat,
the 6 flat and the 2 flat too. I don’t get
what Wallace Stevens means by imagination.
When groundhog shows up as a totem, there is opportunity
to explore the mystery of death without dying.
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!
Now what about that wound that never heals.

The Skeptical Observer column in Scientific American
was somewhat alarming when he accepted a paranormal
explanation for how his wife’s grandfather’s inoperable
transistor radio played music from its hiding spot
in his sock drawer on, and only on, their wedding day.
Now I’ll have to believe my father (or mother!) is watching me
perform private sexual acts with (or without) partners
or that they could even know my thoughts. Or aliens
are attending our committee meetings and making
perfectly reasonable decisions given the available information
and the world is rotating just fine without humans.
These possibilities–angels, ghosts, aliens–are better
than holocaust and genocide. In this way,
and only in this way, does doom become endurable.
The wound that never heals in the end is all you’ll feel.

Poem Copyright © Robert Ronnow