Orbs of Light – Sun & Moon

Borrowed Glory

Shining in my glory
You charm the lovesick couples?
Thus spoke sun to moon

*

Hopegivers

As big star goes down
Little bro moon shows its face
Keeping our hopes alive

(sunset from my backyard and moon coming up from the front)

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~ ~~~

These are my two haiku written for Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge 93
The two words provided were: Sun & Moon

Today I attempted haiku poems after a long time. I’m not very good at it, I thought.
But then what am I good at? I wondered. I wrote. I let it be…

Red, White and Blue

 

Huge Solidarity

Opera House roofed
In blue, white and red hues
Lighted compassion

For two days, the sails of Sydney’s iconic Opera House displayed blue, white and red, the colors of the national flag of France. See more pictures from around the world here.

***

 

picture credit: ireport

Crying Jacaranda

Purple blossoms rain
From canopy of branches
A beautiful mess

Sydney streets are commonly lined with Jacaranda trees and in late spring to early summer that it is now, trees display magnificent purple flowers. There are carpets of blue all around and from a distance, the flowers blooming above and the ones fallen below, kind of look synchronized.
But stale fallen flowers soon become a messy risk for pedestrians who have been known to slip on these.
Jacaranda is very much a dream tree of Sydney-siders who kind of measure time with the arrival of flowers on street side Jacaranda trees.

~~~~ ~~~~

These were my two Haiku for Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 71
The two prompts provided were Cover & Color.

The featured header image is Mumbai’s main railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus lit up in the colors of the French national flag.

Weltshmertz and our Woeful Longing

Words like longing and pining pull our heart strings because longing is related to some unfulfilled desire or an unmet need, something that most of of have experienced in life or continue to do so.

Previously, on seeing the words Pine & Grief provided for Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge, I couldn’t help thinking of this phrase ‘we pine for what is not‘.

This phrase, that represents the universal truth, is originally from the poem To The Skylark by P.B. Shelly. For the first time I brought another writer’s work into my post.
Shelly says ‘we look before and after…and pine for what is not…’
I gave it a twist by adding ‘we overlook what we have got…’

Pining for grief

We pine for what is not
And overlook what we’ve got
Recipe for our grief

Thus, the trouble with us is not just that we long too much for our past or that scheme too much for our future. It’s also that we don’t focus on our present, forever ungrateful for what we currently have, while not making the most of it. By doing all this we are ‘pining for what is not’ as well as unconsciously creating sadness and misery rather than positively constructing happiness by taking our current life in our own hands.

*** ***

My second haiku is about a different kind of longing…

Weltshmertz

Hi-tech generation
Craving perpetual novelty
Desolation lingers

Weltshmertz is a feeling of sadness caused by ills of the world, as too much craving brings world weariness.

Longing is not all bad though. There’s a unique pleasure in yearning for the ones we love. It shows that we care. And yet, excess is bad – for excessively desperate longing is not just a sign of existing depression but it is addictive and cyclical, thus causing more depression.

Ebb and Flow Of Poetic Challenges

My participation in Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge is very unpredictable. It all depends upon the ebb and flow of fluids within my grey matter.

The two words provided to us this week:  Tide & Flesh.

*

Flesh and blood humans
Riding on the tides of time
Helpless dummies

*

Go with the flow
Or use might against the tide
Triumph be the goal

*

Burn yourself out
Melt your flesh and bone
Tides will change

*

Nation advances
A rising tide lifts all boats
All lives boom

*

Causing big tides
Mighty Moon flexes its muscles
I rule the Earth!!

*

Receding tides brought
A mermaid’s body on the beach
Sea’s beautiful gift

~~~

Yayyyy!!  (still counting the haiku).

© 2015 Alka Girdhar

To drown in Wine and Poetry

Woman and Wine

Ditched by a bad hen
He immersed not in his tears
Soused himself in wine

*

Hooked to Tears

Poetry that pours out
From the core of a weeping heart
Addictive as wine

(addictive to the writer as well as the reader)

~~~

These were my two Haiku poems for:  Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 61. Have a look at Ronovan’s site. You too can take part in Haiku Challenge.

Words provided this week:  Wine & Tears

Copyright © 2015 Alka Girdhar

Playing these Games of Chance

Games of Chance

In the game of Bridge
As also in the game of Life
Chance decides our moves.

Yes it does. Those who completely believe in this, leave it all to chance.

Better still, when playing the game…learn the rules, focus, know your playing partners enough and be respectable towards the opponent. Even after that you may lose. That’s because a probability of always winning is low anyway.

Hence, make the most of what you have and enjoy while you’re at it…that’s the best you can do.

~~~

For:  Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 60.
Words provided this week:  Bridge & Move

Copyright © 2015 Alka Girdhar

Kleptomania Aborted

Too bird-brained she was
To thus get caught red-handed
Thief’s Labor Lost

Through my little Haiku poem, I’m not making fun of some woman caught stealing by a shopkeeper’s CC camera. But the shock or disbelief is there when we see some decent person stealing petty things.

“What? She was stealing? My gosh!!  But she’s so well-off. Does she need to steal a lipstick?”

“Oh! She’s a kleptomaniac”

Kleptomania is the inability to refrain from the urge to steal items and is done for reasons other than personal use or financial gain, defines Wikipedia

So, is this stealing compulsion a depression of a some sort?  After all this act is for some emotional satisfaction rather than material gains. Kleptomaniacs often steal things they do not really need.

While this mania is not totally harmless, there are often no ill-intentions as such towards the product owner. That’s why stealing is carried out without any intelligent plan, and that is the reason so many kleptomaniacs are caught, esp. when it becomes too much of a habit. Like when they steal too often or steal too many things.

And because most kleptomaniacs are women, it makes sense that women often make news when they get caught stealing petty things.

Men.  Now men either do not steal that often…or they do not get caught.

Jokes apart, women are generally known to seek happiness through shopping, what we positively call ‘retail therapy’.  For some people, excessive shopping that is seemingly harmless, does help fill their emotional vacuum or loneliness, while others who are even more emotionally disturbed, take their shopping addiction one step further, as they begin to find comfort in an addiction called stealing.

Possibly it’s not as innocent as that. What if they are established small time thieves and not harmless kleptomaniacs. It could be a bad habit from childhood carried till adulthood. A moral lesson not learnt the whole life, as nobody punished them for their first wrongdoing.

Whatever it is, the need is to not make fun of anyone who’s addicted to this kind of petty stealing but get the person to seek counseling so that the root cause of their problem can be traced.  Try saving a human heart and soul if you can, with love and kindness.

~~~~

My Haiku poem and thoughts in response to Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 59.
Key words given: Bird & Red

An Obedient Feminist

An Obedient Feminist

A free thinking woman
She fights for everyone’s rights.
With hubby’s permission.

 

*****

For: Ronovan Writes Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 54
Words Provided:  Free & Think

*****

Anti-feminists

I’m a free thinking woman
I love gender equality.
But if I fight with men
then who’s going to…
mow my lawn
fix the taps
open my car door
pay the bills
pamper me
like a queen.
But
I like equality
I respect all men.

*****

In response to my post, Lola from ‘Through Lola’s Prism’ asked me “What is the punchline?”.  Well, I had left it to the readers to figure it out.  But generally…is feminism an eyewash…more of an oxymoron?

Hands Up!!

“Hands up!!  Young Lady!
Give me whatever you have!
Save your future”

I have often imagined this scenario esp. after that GPS incident.  If faced with something like this, better not argue with the goon/s. Better give them all that you have – for your life’s sake, for your future. And theirs.

Sounds easy. But the reality is, if somebody does this to me, I’ll be horrified.  I may swoon.

Now look at this picture.

This little girl, in war-ridden parts of Syria, also looks awe-struck. But it seems like she’s quite familiar with this concept of ‘putting your hands-up’ when faced by anyone who’s carrying a mechanical thing that looks like a gun. The picture was taken by a photojournalist and shows how this child mistook the camera for gun and impulsively held her hands up in surrender.

Soon after that, a Red Cross worker had also shared a picture of another Syrian girl child raising her hands in surrender because she too thought the camera was a gun.

No chirpy childhood for such children. No play schools full of colorful toys, no school bags, no fun schooling with playful age-mates, no bright future. Their lives are on a knife-edge where at any moment they may have to ‘put their hands up’ – only to survive, only to keep themselves alive. Quality of life is not even their immediate worry.

Can we give them something? Can anyone save their future?

This pathetic situation exists in many if not most parts of the world, in some form or the other – little kids not living a life of a child.  In the egotistic power games and political rivalries of adults, these budding lives are sacrificed.

~~~~~

For: Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge 51
Words provided: Future & Give

We Are Hounds Forever

Here are my Haiku poems for Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge 50.

The words provided were ‘gain’ and ‘hound’.  My hounding brain, yielded forth some gain.

love hounds
lovers hound forever
pining love at all wrong places
gain, a wild-goose-chase

lust hounds
molesters hound forever
groping for petty physical gain
oh what sick life!

newshounds
newshounds sniff forever
hoping to gain a sassy story
beware! they may catch you

life is a hound
life hounds forever
for true happiness and joy
gain is a mirage

***

Continuing this mood, here’s a very wise quote by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834):

“Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We are not here to be happy, but to experience great and wonderful things”

So we shouldn’t perpetually try to be happy but we should look for ‘great and wonderful things’.

But Coleridge also said: “The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions – the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.”

Which means we should hound to gain ‘little’, ‘great’, ‘wonderful’ things.

Now what are these ‘little’ things that are ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’, or ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’ things that are ‘little’ and yet ‘great’?  Do you know?

~~~

Copyright © 2015 Written by Alka Girdhar

One, Two, Three!