Minakhi Misra

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  • Innerstellar

    1.
    The three-year-old was not convinced.
    For all his mountain-climbing mud,
    He got no chance of plucking stars
    To sparkle up his goodnight milk.

    2.
    For thirty years, he sat on hills
    So Milky Way adopts him once.
    But all it ever did instead
    Was orphan him of conviction.

    3.
    It took his words three hundred years
    To rise as cream in people’s minds,
    Convinced, at last, to hear their breaths
    That pluck at constellation chords.

    May 18, 2022
    Poems
  • Dead Poetry

    A reader of my poetry
    Who also watches poetry
    On YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
    Reported on a WhatsApp call
    That poetry on page is dead.
    That poetry is poetry
    If performed as poetry
    By singers, actors, rappers, prudes,
    Or simply boring poets too.
    “If writ for ears the poem is,
    Why leave it as a paper piece?”

    Because it’s written with the ear,
    But for the mind to find the time
    To grind through lines and rhymes that try
    To pound the sounds of all around
    Into the silence of the Self.
    A poem is a poem live
    If all it ever does is lie
    Upon a tongue, be old or young,
    For just a moment’s inwardness,
    Arousing an inflection in
    Intuition’s inventory.
    The page is good enough for that.

    May 17, 2022
    Poems
  • Cucumber Poetry

    Dissevering a cucumber
    I envied how each slice retained
    Identity as “cucumber”.

    Now, there’s a litmus test for craft.

    You slice your poem into lines,
    And thumb a line between two slides,
    And hold it up to cloudy light,
    And squint to look for “poetry”.

    If all you see is whitened verse
    In search of fractal fulfillment,
    Compost the line inside your mind
    And hope a vine is recomposed.

    Until then salt your severed whines
    And grit your teeth on cucumber.

    May 16, 2022
    Poems
  • Cinderella Shoe

    Her Cinderella crystal shoe
    Bombarded on my Iron Mask
    With shattering ferocity
    Of Simba roars in Tiger Caves.

    Of course, her crystal shoe was strong:
    She’d bargained off her Ariel hair
    And mermaid fins for thousand pricks
    Of steely blades on every step.

    I swept my Humpty Dumpty mask,
    And picked the shoe to lick it clean.
    Of course, it cut my Sparrow Tongue:
    It’s made of Diamonds in the Rough.

    She pulled me by my Beastly mane
    And blew me her al bacio,
    Accepting everything about
    My Ratatouille existence.

    She wrapped her Riding Hood on me
    And called her band of Seven Dwarves
    To play the Pied Piper tune
    And danced with me forever aft.

    May 15, 2022
    Poems
  • Clothesline flags

    Some dreams begin on coloured sheets
    Arrayed triangularly on
    An ancient clothesline hardly used
    Except on Ganapati days.

    A pinch-out zoom reveals on them
    The oily fingerprints of past –
    Some tinier than memory
    Of when the ladoos seemed so big.

    Another pinch-out zoom reveals
    A grain or two of guilty glee
    On faces of two hasty boys
    Who wiped their chuda ghasa hands.

    Some three-four pinch-in zoom-outs show
    The chairs arranged as temple frames,
    The wardrobe hanger temple arch,
    And cotton saree walls and roof.

    A pinch-out zoom into it all
    Reveals a china clay Ganesh,
    Whose gangashiuli garland hides
    The modak belly we all love.

    A swipe to left reveals the bowl
    Of disappearing boondi balls,
    Correctly placed within the reach
    Of that prosthetic probosis.

    A swipe to right reveals the books
    Which parents want the kids to read
    With jasmine petals cringing at
    The boring subjects underneath.

    Somewhere beyond zoomable dreams
    A father chants remembered words,
    A mother hums forgotten tunes,
    A grandma grumbles at them both.

    Somewhere inside a beaten man,
    A little boy is tugging hard
    To keep the coloured clothesline taut
    With flags of hope against the dark.

    May 14, 2022
    Poems
  • End-to-end Encrypted

    Economy of brevity
    Erases opportunity.
    Elaboration soon dilutes
    Essentials into absolutes.

    May 13, 2022
    Poems
  • The Fault in our Feet

    She had a falling out with me
    The day I fell in love with her.
    The fault, I say, was in our feet.
    Our gaits were unfamiliar:

    I was iambic, out of step
    With her trochaic tendencies.
    I climbed to slide and jump with joy.
    She dove to soar and glide with ease.

    She planned pentasyllabic fun
    For my monosyllabic moods.
    And when she needed space and breaks
    I walked into prosaic woods.

    It’s good we weren’t meant to be.
    I’ve found who’s meter-made for me.

    May 12, 2022
    Poems
  • Competitive Advantage

    Enduring Worth needs Urgency.
    But Urgency needs Patience, Poise.
    Before the Cheetah sprints to hunt,
    It scopes terrains and runs through ploys.

    It welcomes Boredom, Tedium –
    Essential allies in the hunt.
    The dreary sharpening of claws
    Prepares it for the final stunt.

    Its mighty heart and massive lungs,
    So inefficient, bothersome,
    Are just the tools it needs to chase
    Opportunities when they come.

    It goes for days without a kill.
    It doesn’t store its food as fats.
    The hunger focuses its search,
    Impels it to new habitats.

    Our artists, scientists deep in work
    Are cheetahs sharpening their claws,
    Amassing bodies of research
    Required for their mighty cause.

    Their days are dreary, dull to watch.
    They do not swim in ready cash.
    But when their time arrives at last,
    Their action makes the biggest splash.

    May 11, 2022
    Poems
  • Live Death

    I’ve seen the bodies of our dead,
    But haven’t seen them as they die.
    I’ve seen before-and-after states,
    But never during, never live.

    I wonder how they leave their lives.
    I can’t forget a single time
    I’ve seen a goat or chicken cut:
    They always writhed in blood and slime.

    I’ve seen the crabs in boiling pots.
    They start to climb but lose their steam.
    Their spirits rising, full of scent,
    Disperse as unremembered dreams.

    I’ve seen a rat under a bowl
    Of crystal-clear plexiglass
    Eat up its tail when desperate
    To live its way through poison gas.

    I’ve seen a bee without its sting.
    I’ve seen a puppy’s highway crash.
    I’ve seen a pigeon in a well.
    But haven’t seen a human pass.

    Is that why Death is so obscure?
    A foggy concept in my mind?
    A thing that comes to movie stars,
    Dramatic front with gore behind?

    Perhaps the doctors shouldn’t hide
    The dying in their curtained spreads.
    Perhaps they should record the deaths
    As done by some on birthing beds.

    May 10, 2022
    Poems
  • Dose

    Today my muse has taken leave.
    She needs to get her second shot,
    Innoculating her against
    The viral temptations I’ve got.

    She tells me distance, quarantine,
    Are vital to my solitude –
    The well from which I draw my ink –
    I shush her with ingratitude.

    She tells me I should mask my words,
    To keep my germs from getting out,
    Infecting those who’re close to me,
    Who chose to be with me throughout.

    And yet I whine, complain, protest.
    I raise my fists and say I’m free.
    “I’m free to do the things I want”
    Forgetting I’m a nobody.

    Forgetting no one owes me shit.
    Forgetting all I get is love.
    They give me gifts because they care.
    I cannot claim that I deserve.

    May 9, 2022
    Poems
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