Z - A Zeal Unleashed

 

With a restless zeal to conquer

The feet set forth on that climb

Along with, those of the others

Meandering their lone way 

Through the thicket of the wilds

A gunny sack of dreams

Hung over the shoulder

Tightly knotted around its mouth

To be opened some day..one day

Far away in the future

Possibly, as far as that peak

While the hands were busy

Clearing the undergrowth

In order to scale that height

And the feet kept climbing 

Clambering that ascend

As the days and the dreams

Kept gathering in the sack

But, then came that day

When the feet tired out

And couldn't go any further

The eyes however did rummage

Seeking for that elusive peak

But, nowhere in sight

With the hands so weary

That they couldn't muster the strength 

To unknot the heavy sack of dreams

Which now tumbled down the hill

Along with the gunny sack

Plummeting down the descend

Taking that very path the feet had 

As the eyes traced them 

With a zeal, as still as

That urn of clay

Holding the ashes

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter Z.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

Y - To The Lands Yonder

 

When the dried leaves strewn on the ground rustled

And the winds whispered their tune

Did they reckon among them

As to which ones were unique

When the sea waves washed away the sand grains

With the ebb and flow of their dancing tides 

Did they reckon among them

As to which ones were unique

When the dawn broke with the rays of the sunlight

And fell upon the glistening pearls of dew

Did they reckon among them

As to which ones were unique

When the voices and footsteps became  evanesces

And dissolved into a few words of eulogies 

Did they reckon among them

As to which ones were unique

Yet again,

When life hums its typical sing-song tune

The voices inside and around urge, to strive

For that unique song

Before getting carried away

To the lands yonder

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter Y.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

X - An Ounce In Excess

 

There I lay

securely fastened

and held down 

by the metal bolts

beside a bunch of others similar 

Each of us endeavouring 

in all our earnestness

to take those ounces of load 

when the wagons of life

huddled past in all their fury

As we bore every single signature 

of those abrasions in a trail

each one couldn't help but wonder

if I were the only one burdened

with an ounce in excess

Until that one day in bloom that had arrived

when those dainty little dandelions sprout

amidst us, the cold hardened metal tracks

and stood there without a bend or a stoop

nor with the slightest fret in their loop

Thus, as we, the tracks lay there, as if in a trance

and the wheezing wagons wheels crushed past 

the gay dandelions in all their delicate sway

still smiled away, undeterred and unburdened 

with any ounce that was in excess

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter X.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

W - The Wardrobe's Muse

 

A trail of dreams

Waddled through

Falling off the shelves

Scraping... trying in vain

To drift apast

Into the outer world

Peeking through the crevices 

Of that chestnut wardrobe 

As it travelled through the years

From one home to another

Changing hands and names

Gifting only an invisible pair of feet

To those entrapped dreams

In the form of verses

Inside a quaint little book

Hidden away inconspicuously 

In one dark little corner

Till one day

A tiny little silhouette

Climbed into the wardrobe 

And gathered the trails

Of the tattered sheets 

Into the cups of its hands

And gave them the wings

As they blissfully 

Floated down

Like delicate feathers

Down a glass window

The dreams however

Finally took their flight

Towards the clouds

To steal the sky

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter W.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

V - Virtue Of A Rock

 

As the flowers swayed

In all their vibrant hues

I sat along to a side

And gazed silently

A rock that I was

Seasons pranced past

With the flowers embracing 

Each of them with elan

Whether it be a quiver

Or a gleeful beam

But I remained the same

All along, all the way long

A rock that I was

Cloaking the cracks within

Guarding them under unseen

Neither by the flowers 

Nor by the changing seasons

For a rock that I was

But then wonder I did

At many a times

If my being a rock

Was at all a virtue

As they proclaimed 

For had I been just a flower

I could sway, laugh and cry

At any given hour

And the universe would 

Possibly then heed

Without batting an eye lid 

Unlike, as presupposed

For a rock that I was

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter V.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

U - Unseen....Unheard

 

When the sky had turned an ashen grey

and the clouds had thundered

with their silvery streaks

I crouched there

as one among them

but, unseen....unheard

When the rivulets thronged along hastened

and chased one another 

as always, in a fever pitch

I crouched there

as one among them

but, unseen.... unheard

When the tears welled up bundling 

the muted emotions together 

into a silent stream

I crouched there

as one among them

but, unseen.... unheard

When the morning mist gathered

like glistening pearls

on the earthen world

I crouched there

as one among them

but, unseen.... unheard

And finally, when the day came

that I let go....embracing myself 

as the drop that I was

I caught the glint 

of that universe

unseen and unheard of

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter U.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

T - A Truism

 

PC : Internet

As the needle pierced through 

The cloth gave a sigh

And asked the thread

Would it pain....

Every single time

The thread however 

Stood there beside

And kept smiling

A few winces 

A few caresses 

A few broken threads

A few embroidered patterns

And in the end... 

The cloth wasn't the same...

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter T.   

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

S - Snowflakes

 

Down came the snowflakes 

Descending over so gradually 

Bit by bit, flake by flake

Engulfing everything around

In that pristine shroud

Dissolving all the other hues 

Under a blanket of pure white

Almost enthralling all in a trance

Overwhelmingly making you believe 

In its forever permanence 

But for that, one lone bench 

That stood there testimony 

To that ever transient rhapsody

Of the fleeting emotions play

From time immemorial 

For, it had witnessed it all

And lived through the assortment 

Of the varied streaks of emotions

All, which often meant nothing 

More than a heart's manifestation 

Yet intertwined to form an embodiment  

Of everything, of that one single whole

Each entitled to an epithet of its own

One an enigma bigger than the other

However, whatever be they

Whether a necessary evil

Or an elusive fantasy 

They always came in 

And happened to befall

Just like the snow

Tiptoeing away stealthily 

Only leaving behind

Those few moments of euphoria 

That could be only held on

As the rest melted away

Season after season

Bit by bit, flake by flake

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter S.  

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

R - The Rosewood Dresser

 

PC : Unsplash 

And there it stood 

a deep chestnut colored 

Rosewood dresser

as years piled by, layer after layer

with the dust laden memorabilia 

muddled together into its drawers.

Only the dresser knew, 

which among those in that clutter

once held dearer than the rest

and in which order,

that were now labeled   

as the paraphernalia.    

An oxidized filigree earring lost from its pair, a scratchy picture of carefree young faces, a rusted wrist watch with a tattered glass dial, an old school progress report with blurred grades, a book-marked and dog eared novel, a torn and pieced together musical greeting card, a yellowed letter with pages stuck together holding on to the fragile folds and creases , few revenue stamps, a broken Walkman, old Nokia mobile phone, a handmade woolen muffler, few rusted coins, a pair of fragmented lac bangles, a fountain pen, a gold ring with missing stones, a pair of tiny mittens, a baby scarf, a small black transistor radio and a red leather bound diary.....

Left there untended,

in those drawers 

singing a eulogy 

as they departed

of that Rosewood dresser

that was now to be readied 

as a keeper anew. 

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter R. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

There was a prompt in NaPoWriMo2021 to compose a poem on the items inside an old drawer. This is my attempt on that prompt. 

Q - The Quest

 

Meandering its way

Through the thick of the wild

The path reached there

And paused for a moment's breath

Beside the log of wood

Which also seemed to ask

Just like all those what ifs

That peeked at every bend

'To where art thou headed'

Weary of its ordeal

And wistfully gazing ahead

At what appeared to be

Like an everlasting journey 

The path pondered aloud

Am I going the right way?

Will I reach there one day

At that final destination 

Which is, the end of the Earth

The log gave a knowing smile and said

Aye my dear, that's where all the others

Are headed too, to that very point

Follow them 'n you will reach there as well

But I thought no one's ever reached there

Asked the path astonished

Aye dear, that's an affirmative too

Confirmed the wooden log

For, every one who started 

On that unquenchable quest

Never began their way back 

From any of their end

And neither did realise that

The Earth remained round as always

At each corner and every little bend

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter Q. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

P - Picture Perfect

 

Just when they were at the concrete bend

I put away the parched leaves first

Below the white enveloping shroud

Followed by the dried twigs

And the barren broken branches

Concealed behind the lush vibrant crimson leaves

While camouflaging the rough edges

Of the hammered bolts and the splintered rocks

With the cold metal laid there steadfast

Among the myriad dreamy snowflakes 

The peeled paint and the scarred cracks remained

Embraced aesthetically between the beaming red bricks

And as the vehicles sprinted away purposefully 

The clueless fissured tar hid past scattered 

With the railway tracks disappearing into the mist

Like that riveting story waiting to unfold one day

And thus in that moment when I was captured

By a mere thousand odd pixels 

I appeared picture-perfect, didn't I! 

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter P. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

O - Other Side Of The Tinted Glass

  

PC : Unsplash

One side of the tinted glass window

Housed those measured smiles

Sparkling chandeliers 

Immaculate arrangements

Plentiful Of Inanimate 

Classy colors

Artificial bird cages & waterfall sounds

Humming appliances

Overflowing wants but tidy bins

Closed Rosewood mahogany doors

And cared for expensive artefacts 

With eyes that intermittently gazed 

In between the deafening silences

At those tinted glasses 

But never wanting to see

What was beyond 

Other side of the tinted glass window

Housed abundant laughter 

Sparkling stars

Cluttered arrangements

Plentiful Of warmth 

Gaudy colors

Chirping birds & gushing rains

Humming breeze

Overflowing needs but wants filled bins

Chestnut rusted doors ajar

And cared for relationships 

With eyes that intermittently gazed 

In between the numbing cacophony 

At those tinted glasses 

Always wanting to see

What was beyond

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter O. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

N - Nature's Illusions

 

Picking up the seashells 

As I walked down the shore

I heard those voices, following behind,

Of the age-old folklore

Like the footprints in the sand

'Only the distinctive ones in the lot

Carry that sacred scar they got

A bounty to each prophecy 

That has ever been 

By the mankind sought'

Painstakingly thus, I collected as many

One for each... of the hallucination's company

Just then, into my ears, softly whispered

Those few sand grains that had lingered

Aren't these another of the nature's illusions

They smirked, when I tried to brush them off

And asked me they in all their confusion

As for the bribing of that fortune

How were they any different, even if a rough-hewn 

For finally, when the sea waves rose

And in their mighty tides came

Towards the shore for us all

They washed away everything alike

The seashells, 

The sand grains,

The footprints et al.

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter N. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

M - When The Mountains Echoed

 

And The Mountains Echoed 

Was there anyone there to listen

To all those voices reverberating there

Since, what was like, maybe an eternity 

Or were they all still cocooned

In their individual houses of sought-after desires

For A Thousand Splendid Suns to rise 

And even if that miracle one day

Were to happen for real

Would they have willingly shared

A bit of that Sun each with the other 

In that inescapable Journey Of Souls

Or would they have just ignored it all

And continued irrespective in what they perceived 

To be their quest alone in this universe 

Even if the voices were those of 

The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Or of those who belonged to the same cohort of

The Kite Runner and The Book Thief 

Whose voices of wisdom now were  stored away

In only those majestic mountains that stood

Transcending the tests of time

Which flowed down those high peaks to the valleys

Through the whispers of the wind

Only if someone there down below

Could care to pause and lend a ear to listen

Or probably that's what this entire construct is all about

That is, to evolve in your own individual quest

To that age-old Man's Search For Meaning

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter M. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour.

There was a prompt to write a poem woven around the name of your favourite novel sometime back by ArtoonsInn and this is my attempt on that prompt. 

L - That Book Called Life

 

PC : Unsplash 

Yellowed pages of

Faded chapters 

A few titled 

And a few untitled 

Camouflaging into

Blurred traces

Of broken words 

Left behind to linger

Among, vivid images

Of stiched phases

Etched Into 

Those very pages

Few and far between 

And as I scrolled through 

I wondered, at what precise point 

Did those pages begin to yellow!

And in what chronological order

If there was any

Did they start to fade

Did the titles go first

Or was it the chapters

And did they all just dissolve

Into the oblivion

Or did they find space

In some other chapter

Under some other title

In another such book

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter L. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

K - The Kaleidoscope & The Hourglass

PC : Unsplash

As the grains of sand

In the Hourglass 

Slowly trickled past

The Kaleidoscope there

Sat on the table smug

And pondered to itself

Weren't they all just the same

Not one different from the other

Unlike its very innate self

Who between us, it wondered

Could be the cause to that enigma

In which, each one of them behaved 

Just the same, unable to ever solve

The conundrum in that very game

As simple as the question was

That how many different patterns 

In total do you get to see

Till the last speck of sand grain

In the Hourglass exhausts

And not a single one of them

Tries to savour and live through 

One glimpse at a time 

As long as they last

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter K. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

 

J - A Jamboree's Continuum

 

Like what seemed

A routine jamboree 

The leaves groggily donned

Their most vibrant hues

And went on to face the world

Every day, as the daylight struck

Sometimes they tried

A vivacious crimson 

And at other times 

A sombre beige

One shade at a time

In one season each

Upholding the nature's 

Variety by a seize

They were meant to 

Keep performing their best

In order to engross 

All the spectators 

As they kept up with 

Their defined lives zest

But then, there came those times too

When the silent stream below 

Did gurgle past

With its gypsy feet 

Ever so welcomingly

Or the murmuring breeze sang 

All the yonder tunes

And tried to sway them away 

To that world beyond

But more often than not 

The leaves clinged on 

Dearly to their only bark

Heaving a sigh 

As the vagaries by-passed 

And every single time, waited they

For the soothing moon to descend

Hoping to wake up 

From the continuum 

Even if by a miracle 

To a new and a different day

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter J. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

I - If I Were

 

PC : Unsplash

If I were a poem

How would it have been

Would the verses have ended

In perfect rhyming couplets

Or would they have just been

Hanging abstracts indented

Would it have even sounded

Soulful and earnest

Or would it have been again 

As per the worldly definitions founded

Would it even have had 

As many verses to begin

Or just ended with 

A few phrases 

Few and far between

How ever it would have been

But I wonder, if we were all

Just another poem each

Who would even begin 

To read the other

Why and when

And finally, at the end

Would there be left behind

Just a book of unread poems then

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter I. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

H - Haphazard

 

Below the vast night's sky

Sprinkled every inch with

The twinkling little stars

Teemed, almost mirroring it

The gleaming yellow lights

Of innumerable houses 

That sprawled across with

The streams of water trails 

Coursing in-between 

Through the ruffling 

Of the whispering trees 

Strewn all over

Around which, the night birds 

Hummed silently a lullaby 

As the ducks flocked together

And the insects composed 

The night's symphony

Rustling the leaves 

Scattered on the ground

Thus, spreading along

The nature's potpourri 

However, a lone mind

Among all these

Kept rummaging haphazardly 

For some kind of perfect order

In this cacophony 

Of the universe's 

Flawless disorder

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter H. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

G - The Game Of Perception

  

PC : Unsplash

A bunch of tinted bottles

Sat atop the counter muddled

In varied colors

They glistened anew

With each ray of light

That passed them through

Few of them tried captivating

With their charismatic glow

While some others shined 

Like a myriad of hues in a row

All trying hard with their charm

With just a single purpose under the arm

To be that one 

Of those chosen few

Which can adorn aesthetic spaces

And spend their lives 

In blissful luxury of that woo 

Leaving behind those, according to them

Whose fate was sealed 

To be abandoned 

As valueless into the backyard field

So, there thus lay those ill-fated ones

Whose bashful glamour 

Couldnt keep up with the fancied runs

And went through the grind thus they

To be reduced to shards in such a way

So as to serve as an incandescent bulb

Or as a masterpiece in an art hub

But then, those ornamental tinted glasses

That were busy in their show

Never saw the destiny of these 

Nor even ever got to know

For that's the order of the universe 

And will always be

As, if, perceptions were to go

That might just leave behind another limbo

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter G. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour

F - The Fog

 

Outside the window

After a long time

I happened to glimpse 

At the fog that had set in

And like everyone else, in vain 

Tried to capture it 

Yet once again

The dense mist 

Suspended away

Ever so delicately 

In the midst of thin air

Neither held down

Nor effaced 

It kept floating away

Unruffled by the haze

Little did it care

If it was reckoned 

As just another of those

Euphemisms to reality

Or regarded as an illusionary veil 

Into which the bygones camouflaged

Neither it seemed to matter

If it left behind a saga to entail 

Or even a token of remembrance 

Unshackled by the common rigmarole 

Effortlessly it rose

And drifted away gracefully 

To particularly nowhere

Leaving behind 

Only its essence

As a legacy

If at all, to reminisce

PS : This post is posted as part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 challenge for the letter F. 

Poem posted as part of the 30 day poetry challenge for the month of April #NaPoWriMo2021 and #ArtoonsInnPoetryParlour