MURTYMUSE

  POETICA : 3   Poem of the Week   My poem The Leaf   Look at me I am only a leaf Torn from my branch Where I was born and blossomed Where I played and sang Fluttered in the gentle breeze Now lying torn and lonely here All alone and musing For many days now Days I have lost count, in fact, Here I lie on sodden coaltar Since the rowdy wind rose Howled and rattled, jarred and jolted, And tore me off with a single slap From the topmost branch Of this old and timeworn tree Bringing in its wake Cool monsoon showers Riding piggyback merrily Yes, the wind was rude and rowdy It shook the branches wildly Swaying them sideways Upwards and downwards Wickedly in every which way it will Tearing at them, at us the leaves Till we flew helter-skelter in the wind And fell here on the bluehued coaltar And then came the burly rain With huge buckets of water With grating rasping laughter And with angry crazy booms In the dark spar

  POETICA : 2   Poem of the Week   November By Walter de la Mare     There is wind where the rose was, Cold rain where sweet grass was, And clouds like sheep Stream o'er the steep Grey skies where the lark was. Nought warm where your hand was, Nought gold where your hair was, But phantom, forlorn, Beneath the thorn, Your ghost where your face was. Cold wind where your voice was, Tears, tears where my heart was, And ever with me, Child, ever with me, Silence where hope w as. Theme Poem as story   Is poetry really a free flowing wind?   Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!   Was D.H. Lawrence speaking here about poetry - great poet as he was. Perhaps. Look at these lines from his famous poem ‘Snake’.   A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there…..   He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, And

  POETICA : 1   The magic of poetry   I am not a poet. I am an ordinary human being. But even I can’t escape the snare of poetry. Poetry is like air. Everyone breathes it. It is like our life breath. It’s part of our life - every moment of it. It is inseparable from our existence. Even when we don’t realize it’s inseparability from our living, it is in and around each one of us. To that extent everyone who lives is a poet. We have our sensory and super- sensory experiences, waking or asleep. Just as our breathing doesn’t stop even for a moment, all our experiences are subservient to our breathing. We experience because we live and we live because we breathe. Poetry, therefore, is passively and unmanifestedly always with us.   But we can be aware of it, just as we can be aware of our breathing if we concentrate and focus on it. Suddenly we realize its being; we become aware of its regular inhalation and exhalation. We then start hearing the soft pounding of our heart beats.

  P O E T R A M A Today on this Blog we begin a new feature on Poetry in all its variegated facets, including the regular posts of my new poems, occasionally along with poems by others, and a continuing column on POETICA which will present brief notes on various aspects of poetry, and also occasionally collectible material on poetry on the international scene.  Seven of my poems have been selected for publication in two international    anthologies :  1. Kistrech Poetry Festival, largest annual literary festival in Africa bringing local & international poets together on one platform. Two of my poems given below are published in this Anthology MUSINGS DURING A TIME OF PANDEMIC : A World Anthology of Poems on Covid-19, ed. by Christopher Okemwa, Kisii University, Kenya (www.okemwa.com) 2. LITEROMA : An international Magazine (literomainc@gmail.com) published from Kolkata (India) where in its Nov. 2020 issue, 5 of my poems ( The Pitcher, The Leaf, Hi, Krishna & Marigold Garland ar