A deluge on my joy
I am just one toy
To be used a bit
Then, in a pile to sit
Choices molded
My ballot folded
For causes, I know, not
Cause I am just a bot
Czars of the world, new
Use and dump, not a few
Sparing a small number
Who, favored, slumber
They support your cause
Lulling you without pause
Wake up ere t'is too late
Ere they've bolted the gate
If you left me alone,
I don’t know what I’d do,
I’ll break my own heart,
If it means sparing you.
I’ll create distance,
Do whatever I have to do,
If it’ll make it hurt less,
When I lose you.
I’ll hurt my own feelings,
Create my own hell to walk through,
I’ll drink my own poison,
So that I don’t poison you.
I’ll create my own thunderstorm,
Find my way to make it through,
I’ll bear the rain,
To create a rainbow for you.
I’ll make myself cry,
Until my vision goes blurry,
I’ll break my own heart,
Before my own heart breaks me.
The morning sighs
with hoarse, guttural caws.
Crows twirl and cartwheel backwards,
like charred scraps of newspaper
caught in wild feral, wind eddies
above a raging bush fire.
Goosestepping gulls
enforce their feeding-ground territories
with threats and violent gestures
their beaks snapping shut
like rust-corroded, iron gates.
Looping caterpillars
form a Congo line
across the blistered bark of trees
while ants drag dismembered wings
along cracks in the pavement.
A magpie bludgeons
a snail against the stones
until the shell gives way
its pale body spilling outwards;
a molluscan sacrifice
that satisfies the hunger pangs
of a black-and-white starving bird.
Worms writhe blindly,
torn asunder
on the hot sunbaked soil
attacked by hordes of bull-ants
lake tiny matadors in torero corrida,
sparing with capes and lances
as they torment the helpless,
doomed, and dumb, succumbed prey.
The morning sun rises,
guilty as charged!
without pity or cause,
without mercy or motive,
to silent, stark applause,
as nature pleads for survival.
You stay right here.
I’ll be the one to leave.
Not because I want to go,
but because loving you
means sparing you the guilt
of pushing me away.
You stay right here.
I’ll go first.
So it won’t feel like
you chose a life without me—
it will feel like
I loved you enough
to step aside.
If someone must walk away,
let it be me,
the one who learned your silences,
the one who stayed
even when staying hurt.
Maybe someday,
when the world rests quiet
and your heart looks back,
you’ll remember me
not as a loss,
but as love
that knew when to loosen its hold.
If I become a memory,
let me be a warm one—
the kind that smiles softly
in the middle of lonely nights,
the kind that whispers,
I was loved. I was chosen.
Even in goodbye.
Well Gobble and Waddle are two lucky birds
For Thanksgiving dinner they will not be served
They’ll go back to school
Will think themselves cool
And the Badge of Elite on them be conferred
The President of the United Stated pardons a turkey as a lighthearted tradition that began with Abraham Lincoln sparing a turkey at his son's request and was made official in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush.
Today, the President officially "pardons" one or two turkeys each year, saving them from the Thanksgiving dinner table and allowing them to live out their lives, often at a farm or zoo.
After being pardoned, this year’s turkeys, Gobble and Waddle, will return to North Carolina State University to live under the care of the Prestage Department of Poultry Science.
They will be transported back after their pardon ceremony and will reside at the university for the rest of their lives.
Before the pardon ceremony, the birds stayed overnight at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C.
26 Oct 2025
3:49 Pm
A stream flows down from 1966.
Memories made vivid as years pass and age is fixed.
Barely out of diapers sitting on the back porch posing for a picture with sis.
Playing with cousins in the leaves and autumn mist
Turning the bend a new age begins
Starting school and making friends
The stream then turns to river and the rapids start to rage
20 years deep the and rushing so fast upon rocks smashed my cage
Now captain of my river boat fine
Filled with sounds some joyful some sublime
Onward I continue to fast to notice
First one new mountain and then two their own streams and motives
With damaged hull and well worn decks
Age takes it toll not sparing a speck
Now time rewinds and lets me review what went by in a hurry
Time spent well and time spent in worry
The ocean is nearer every day
Soon into the sunset I will sail and stay
Oft resting under wooded trees
Roams she, hides head behind bent knees,
Adjusts her scant bosom rag, tries
To foil peering moon’s prying eyes.
___________________________
Translation (quatrain) | 30.08.2025 | woman, moon
Note: Here is a verse (in Upajati meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). A woman is separated from her husband and roams looking for him, hiding in shadows of woods, adjusting her meagre bosom cloth, sparing it as if from peering moon’s prying eyes. Here is the transliteration of the Sanskrit verse:
Vishramya vishramya vana-drumaanaam
Chaayaasu tanvi vichachaar kaachit |
Stana-uttareeyena karot dhrtena
Nivaarayanti shashinah mayookhaan || 56 ||
A huge tsunami did not bother these two
Maude McMillian and her twin sister Sue
They got in their shopping cart and rode a wave
Many commented those old gals are brave
We have been in tsunamis worse than this one said
Yes, and we are still alive said her sis, nowhere dead
They laughed and chortled as they blew around the town
Watching street lights and bridges falling swiftly down
This is no big deal, nothing like the storm of 1992
Maude agreed with her identical twin sister Sue
They snatched up a cat, a dog and two rabbits to save
Sparing them from death and an early grave
Attending school was never an option when the empty drum echoes the song of yearning grains, trekking the lanes with bathroom slippers that awaits a welcoming party in the municipal waste truck while idanuwa na zubar da kwalla.
Bafflement grips me when some sit in their Sunday best with glossy heels kicking a storm for not getting steak when tuwo miyan kuka is served.
Wai mai duniyar nan ke zama ne? The rich are becoming richer and the poor, poorer. Wai fa we can no longer spare a Kobo for the sick and weak when aljuhun mu na zuba. Ni ban ce kudi bata yi ba, wealth is everyone's dream amma sparing little for the needy too is good.
Barely covered head to toe, he stood shivering in the shadow.
Waiting, looking through empty eyes, families dressed in their Sunday best. Walking in and out of the restaurant across the street, not sparing him a second glance.
But he didn't mind; all he wanted were leftovers from the dustbin, because his hungry little sister, back in their dark, cold, rusty home, the old dusty lorry awaits his return.
Waiting to ease the pangs of hunger and for his skinny arms to keep her nice and warm through the dark, stormy night.
Picking imprints from everywhere,
Let all the woods your footprint bear,
Take off, nag at no rutted tract,
What if some rickety ways stare.
Throw to winds every needless care,
Let no head wind unduly dare,
Let the worse worsen, worst to get,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Mind not eastward you go or west,
If north, let not south ever jest,
Let no alien thought you attract,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Root out doubts as you’d thorny weeds,
Walk, brave only to their hearts heeds,
Let eastern nor west wind distract,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Letting no stumbling blocks scare,
Sparing none any endeavour,
Pricks of no space-time interject,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
_________________________
Quatrain |14.11.2024|traveller
At the 11th hour 200 stars & a sun
fell from the heavens
scorching the earth when
they arrived
The beautiful garden was now
tainted by sin & beastly passions
that stopped at nothing
til they devoured
The world cowered at the feet
of their creations conceived
& was painted red
with blood as
what they birthed caused
many to grieve
It's been said that there were
giants in those days
so fierce that even the likes of lions
trembled at the sight of them
Fighting them was a futile
act & God shed tears
from bright eyes so great
that it caused a flood
sparing only a few
Rumor has it their spirits live on
til this day in the hearts
of some
on a smaller scale
as they await release from
the spiritual jail in which
they were cast
The dye was cast long ago
by some that predicted
their return
but we may not live to see
that day or ever know
to be concerned
I myself, more than society am I
A delusional world beyond belief struggle
Or obstacle of movement as a mountain
Controversy world torn between two souls
One heart's breathe to survive who we are
Kind soul that its anger rage so
Killer instinct the body feels excite
Even killer smiles behind face hidden
Lost being in ourselves a unseen truth
They kill the truth, sparing their tears
A society gone mad, controversy wars rein
Crying helplessly from darkness ruins
Destroy all that is good kings shout
Slave to man for their greed we feed
Only you be chosen, your innocent free
Convicted by words, right or wrong
In ourselves we fight in contamination
A poison of blood drips a fiercely change
Or just who we are, we are not same
The one I know before controversy hit
Who are we that cities..lives are devastated
People die, hunger, homeless; veterans forgotten
That even in ourselves we forget one
As world go extinct, nature barely existence
Controversy, no longer word but a problem
My love was wrapped into gestures
Instead of words
Into concerns and nagging
Teasing and smiling
The sigh I gave in fondness
Whenever you pouted over something
When I remembered what mattered
Beyond days and nights
The favorite coffee, the way you slept
Not the product name
But I knew your soap smell
My love was wrapped into doing
Instead of saying
Leaving an extra blanket
An umbrella, a small question
Sparing a smile when I did not feel like
Pulling you tight, it will be alright
Patting your head in praise
Letting you stay or go
Whatever will let your rise
My love was wrapped bittersweet
Instead of angel like
You had to look to find
The sugary parts
Taste it thoroughly before
Leaving a mark
It carried a tinge that will last
Beyond the first touch
Like a faded mingle in future
Of a memorable past.
Purim, holiday of hints and masks
Tears turn to joy and back
Jewish souls on the racks
Trapped between life and death
We held our collective breath
‘Til, spared from the evil decree --
Under the tyrant, King Xerxes
We returned to a life of subjugation and misery
_________________________________
Purim is celebrated tonight and tomorrow,
except in Jerusalem, where it is celebrated
on Sunday evening and Monday. It com-
morates the sparing of the lives of the
entire Jewish world 2,500 years ago, at
the last possible moment.
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