Minakhi Misra

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  • Nothing here

    Is nothing here so fertile
    To match unburdened turmoils
    Of idle workers’ jealousies,
    Whose farmvillesque imaginings
    Can sling and fling them on the wings
    Of angry birds who crush candies?

    Is nothing here so sterile
    To match encumbered salty toils
    Of sweaty workers’ hopefulness,
    Whose dreams, as freshly cottoned fields
    Receiving monsoon’s early yields,
    Are drowning in a muddy mess?

    November 30, 2021
    Poems
  • The Man of All Time

    This man, he wrote which we by rote
    Recite in hopes to match his pen.
    Emboldened by his poetry,
    Assuming ambiguity,
    We play the cast of characters
    Defining our humanity.

    This man, he did invent the man
    Upon a Globe – as Nature, Earth –
    In verses, with researches deep
    Into the one or two accounts
    Historians had penciled down.
    He breathed into the paper hearts
    The spirit and the sentiment
    Which, to the glass of seeing eyes,
    Supplied the misty warmth on which
    The fingers of his fantasy
    Described the circularity
    Of things that are, but will not be.

    This man, he sowed the seeds of time,
    Against the knowledge and the art
    To know which grain will grow, which not,
    And reaped the world in afterlife.
    His good was not interred with bones.
    Not once intrepid lines of his
    Did ask to be or not to be.
    They are, they are, they are, they are
    So good that thinking makes it so
    Today and every next today.

    November 29, 2021
    Poems
  • Ogden’s Muse’s Friend

    I know he’s Ogden’s Muse’s Friend,
    Who rhymes to put an end to end.
    He’s always boiling all day long
    Fomenting yet another song
    Which Ogden’s Muse regards and tears,
    And legs him out without his fares.
    So, when he pleads upstairs for cash,
    He sees the teeth of Ogden gnash.
    He fast retreats into his lair
    To fall about his falling hair
    In rising cones on carpetry,
    Which teach him laws of geometry.
    He squints at scraps of paper torn
    Until he sees the verse reborn:
    With spellings at the ends of lines
    Distorted like two valentines
    Who change themselves to rhyme themselves
    Though truly they are cryim’ themselves.
    He smells his uppertunity
    And crosses uppatrinity.
    He pulls a paper, puts to use,
    And runs again to Ogden’s Muse
    Who sees his new integligence,
    Forgives his former negligence,
    And promptly pays him with a check.
    He takes it with a whattheheck.
    As zeroes, commas seem too few,
    He gurgles up an interview
    With Ogden and his mandible
    Which looks so outofhandible,
    He hesitates to make his plea
    And head-n-tails uneasily.
    He starts to question existence
    And grateful for his legsistence,
    He waterfalls into his lair
    And heightens up his cones of hair.
    He turns the check and writes some verse
    But tears it with a beeping curse.
    He plants the scraps inside the leaves
    Of Pelham Grenville’s _Write Ho, Jeeves!_.
    He woosters at his rummy plight
    And dreams that money sprouts at night.
    The dream becomes a wake up splash:
    He sees the teeth of Ogden gnash.

    November 28, 2021
    Poems
  • Why you shouldn’t date me

    I read too many books.
    So, life isn’t as interesting.

    Or maybe it is. And I’m not.
    Interesting or interested.

    I can deal with languages.
    But not with conversations.

    I seek drama on the page.
    And bring it to relationships.

    I don’t buy gifts.
    I don’t give surprises.

    I don’t even remember dates.
    So, I don’t forget them either.

    I cook enough to survive
    But not enough to serve.

    I walk through most chores
    But not run many errands.

    I play chess, sitting alone by myself.
    I meditate, sitting alone by myself.

    I bite nails. I nail scabs. I sweat a lot.
    I don’t buy clothes or accessories.

    I don’t stream TV. I don’t go to movies.
    I don’t play videos on my Chinese phone.

    I don’t order in. I don’t dinner out.
    I don’t drink drinks. I don’t eat meat.

    I don’t like entertaining guests.
    I don’t like entering as guests.

    I don’t treat myself so well.
    I don’t treat loved ones so well.

    I don’t earn anything useful.
    I don’t learn anything useful.

    I look at the sky and murmur.
    I talk to stars and clouds and rain.

    I look at the mirror and sigh.
    I talk to my self, my muse, my voices.

    I write.

    November 27, 2021
    Poems
  • Selina

    Before the inky cat could tell,
    We got on her a jingling bell,
    So, now at all if she would dare
    And saunter in without a care
    To steal a lick of creamy milk,
    We’ll catch her by her scruffy silk
    And take her to the garden grass
    To show the bowl of burnished brass
    In which we’ll leave her dairy drink,
    Beside a plate of plastic pink
    In which we’ll leave her meaty treats,
    Which no one in the fam’ly eats.

    November 26, 2021
    Poems
  • A Weariness

    A weariness infects my world.

    Contagion, your art is viral now.
    It moves so many well beyond,
    Beyond their dreams and best laid schemes.
    Yet, moves it not my weariness.

    A weariness infects my veins.

    My blood is still C-negative.
    A sea of trouble parts to show
    A reddened arterial road
    Away from hearty destiny.

    A weariness infects my breath.

    My oxygen is high enough
    To think it still imparts me health.
    Combustible it is as rage.
    As obstinate, as impotent.

    A weariness infects my thoughts.

    My tongue excites no mercury
    Beyond the normal level marked.
    My speech is, but, mercurial.
    It makes a bond to break a bond.

    A weariness infects my calm.

    My nails are chewed up cuticles
    Which spew anxieties in a spit.
    I file the ragged sharpnesses
    Before I scratch my other itch.

    A weariness in…fuck my life!

    I haven’t got maturity
    Enough to bear with stoic strength.
    A poet I am meant to be:
    Condemning, cursing much at length.

    November 25, 2021
    Poems
  • Nindo

    I run no venture, nor no trust,
    Nor am I employed. I must
    Admit I only volunteer
    To spread a little fun and cheer
    At places for the elderly,
    And help them get some clarity
    On how to raise their capital,
    And leave them better capable
    To manage their accounts and books.
    At times, I volunteer with cooks
    Who daily whip up filling treats
    For children on the city streets.

    I’ve traveled throughout India
    By freelancing for media
    In every UT, every state,
    Through times of love and tides of hate.
    I’ve lived with many families,
    To listen to their tragedies,
    Immersing in their daily lives
    To see how India survives.

    I read, I write, I quiz, I learn.
    Yet there is more for which I yearn.
    I’m walking with an infant gait
    Upon this path, I dedicate
    The future chapters of my tale:
    To serve the old and young at scale.

    November 24, 2021
    Poems
  • Walking on Globes

    His fingers walked across the globe
    Through Delhi, Tokyo, Vancouver:
    The road not taken in the sky,
    When two diverging careers
    Had made him choose his family.

    He was the age I will be soon.
    And on my road, I see a sign:
    Two arrows splitting up ahead.
    The stakes are same. The choices same.
    Decision likely to be same.

    Will I in forty calendars
    Be walking on augmented globes?

    November 23, 2021
    Poems
  • From a Traveling Art Salesman

    Dear W,

    I dub you a pundit of puns.
    Your pungent writing packs a punch
    And punctuates my punishing role
    That punctures out my very sole.
    With stakes so high, I have no beef
    With well-done cuts from masterchief.
    It’s rare now, but they’d leave me raw
    When I couldn’t follow Murphy’s Law.
    Your play on words then works on me
    As if it is origami
    With manifold advantages:
    1. A compass for my lost wages
    To circle round and find my purse;
    2. A ghazal couplet so di-verse;
    3. A gentle cup of charity
    For one who has no proper tea;
    4. Exciting whys of algebra,
    Algorithms, et cetera.
    My monkey mind needs husbandry,
    Punctilious buffoonery,
    So thanks for how your punctual jokes
    Arrest me like a painter’s strokes.

    November 22, 2021
    Poems
  • Why I don’t talk much anymore

    The quieter I am through the day
    The more I save for Slumber’s Forge,
    Where all the things I have to say
    Are cast in verse from Meter’s Gorge.

    There’s little that I need to do
    Except behold a fantasy:
    Imagination’s set to brew
    Upon the Flames of Poesy.

    My words are dipped, tempered in full,
    And hammered true by metaphors
    That make the meanings pliable
    According to the metered verse.

    So all I have to work on then
    Is test the balance of the weight
    And with the mallet of my pen,
    To gently tap and set it straight.

    The days I spend in talking, though,
    Become my nights of penury.
    And Slumber’s Forge has naught to show
    Upon my morning inquiry.

    November 21, 2021
    Poems
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