Long Congratulatory Poems

I melt into the plural sky
its rippling tableaus of tomorrow
underneath open light waves 
see-saws the labyrinth
like Delphi tendrils crossing channels 
all the changing faces played
automatic, embedded in misty consort 
with Hyde-Lees and Yeats 
love-crushed oracles
ghostwriting...

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Villanelle: No man can on his own escape written fate

         For Thiru-Valluvar, the “nameless” author of 
the THIRUK-KURAL

Note: In my previous posts, especially on Canto 38, I...

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The invaluable dream you had in mind
Yesterday, you said you would take steps on achieving it tomorrow,
Yesterday's tomorrow has come today, so you still postpone it to tomorrow.
When will you stop procrastinating!
What is the connection...

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The invaluable dream you had in mind
Yesterday, you said you would take steps on achieving it tomorrow,
Yesterday's tomorrow has come today, so you still postpone it to tomorrow.
When will you stop procrastinating!
What is the connection...

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Date:  April  4,  2051

Dolly had Molly and Holly delayed
In the dinning area while she secured 
Any loose ends. They had most of
The assemblages in place. The aisle
The flowers? Delilah had questions 
"Mommy...

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“Before The Firing Squad”



the firing squad 
came dressed
in faux smiles

the intervention cake 
was spoon fed, like honey,
by mother superior

to the lesser bee,
with self-righteous
magnanimity

she wore the badge
Devil’s Advocate, proudly,
without any clear authority

casting bloodied 
nasturtiums around the...

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I am struggling
to avoid that "I told you so"
mean
and self-congratulatory voice.

I do feel under-appreciated
but I don't feel any happiness
about the Virus
as vindicator of my beliefs
about the political and economic power
of public health and safety platforms,
which...

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If it is a premise of fundamentalists,
whether Christian or Islamic or Devil Worshipers,
that Reason is bad, faith is good,
what could anyone reasonably say
that could not be unfaithful to good?

However, as I recall,
there is that oft-quoted...

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It is not patriotic
to desecrate a flag
or even denigrate a nationalistic anthem
celebrating a war-torn patriotic flag.

Yet is it even anti-patriotic
to refuse to bow to it,
the flag, that is,
to not stand with supremacist intentions
while singing about...

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Ambiguity and Ambivalence in the THIRUKKURAL: Canto 4, K35, a random example

alukkaa ravaavekuli yinnaacchon naangku
milukkaa viyanra tharam (unrefined, given in the original state of  
         ...

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Metre in the THIRUKKURAL: Kural 35 of Canto 4, a random example.

alukkaa ravaavekuli yinnaacchon naangku
milukkaa viyanra tharam (unrefined, given in the original state of  
         ...

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WHY 13 TOPS MY WEDDING CAKE

A cherubim approaches the celebratory podium,
a fifteen tier cake in her congratulatory hands.
The pews, full of spectators - ready for a heavenly slice,
fragrant oil poured from above, stirs hearts where...

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These steep hills are part of me
Where I learned to ride a bike
And gazed over the industrial haze
And ice-dammed the steep melting  streets
So the toy boat couldn’t
Drift out of control downslope.

Now,  like snow...

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Mnemonic Devices: Rhyme and Alliteration in the THIRUKKURAL, a random example: Canto 4, K35 by T. Wignesan

alukkaaru avaavekuli innaacchol naangkum
ilukkaa iyanrathu aram (refined, shorn of connective particles)
The way of vileness, self-congratulatory aid, ire and foul-mouthing...

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Having nightmares, working from home?
Or being bolted inside four walls for days
Catch up on reading, fiction and writing 
Pick your authors and gulp them down

Catch up on music lessons, instruments too
Grasp them now, be it...

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Taint/
There was a time when I felt like wealth 
all I needed under my belt, 
like why the f*** do I care, 
look at this Gucci I wear, 
like a movie directed by Luci, 
I’ve...

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Last Trains at the End of an Echo
by Sy Roth

The Conestoga wagons littered the wasteland with their spiny bones
            in search of the comfort...

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I KNOW SHE WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS LOVE SONG

As she slowly slips away I say
Now every love song I ever hear seems written especially for her and i
Not a lover bared, bedded or wedded
Nor those...

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I KNOW SHE WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS LOVE SONG

As she slowly slips away I say
Now every love song I ever hear seems written especially for her
Not a lover bared, bedded or wedded
Nor those who shed...

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One day and one space bar later an irrational iguana put on a wetsuit and some roller skates and left the house. He met with his friends on the way who were waiting at the...

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Those of us living in the USA
too often hear Republican capitalist dogma
of The Great Trickle Down Theory,
in which those who have most
must get more first
so they can hire more who have least,
although perhaps not with...

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We heard it over the radio 

We heard it over the radio and I don’t know if it’s true
It was today at the gathering by the village square
The chief had just bought new batteries so...

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Nearing four hundred years
of living in captivity
Solar eclipse aspirations
has been my people’s enduring
ebony destiny
Almost four hundred years
of divided slavery:
chains seen and chains invisible
Hellish experience of double trouble
Self-congratulatory proclamations
of emancipated release 
were accompanied by chains slapped...

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Having never met her, I knew her.
Perhaps to some, in a small way;
but to me, she has loomed large.

Like you and I, she was acquainted
with loss and like "God Special Ones',
She lived to share her...

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We’re shape-shifting, my roommates and I. Transitioning mentally from freshmen and sophomores (nobodies) into juniors (somebodies). We’ve been around, we’re not the new kids anymore. We’re being seen and appreciated. It’s a mindbang.

There was a...

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