SOME FRESH HAIKU/SENRYU

From bright sunlight
to pitch dark tunnel
passes the train

The year's first day
in the sunny courtyard
newspaper flutters

From a wiccan
seeks healing intercession:
fears spirits' clash

Sticks incense fragrance
on dried flowers and cut fruits
before the image

Their first dating:
with inverted reflection
walk out of the bar

Searches her bra
in the pile of nightclothes--
sunwarming

Unclothing
the white night--
lips meeting lips

Walking with
inverted images--
sea beach

Rises with tickles
between the thighs
the dream-serpent

Moving between
the fingers of a toddler:
the first winter rain

The winter chill
slowly rises each evening--
frozen shadows

With his crying baby
he moves in the train's passage:
marital tension

My whitening hair
and the ageing eyes long for
spring in the body

Years of home
in three suitcases:
deep-breathing

On the ramp
hangs the nude her heart:
blazing back

Night's passage
on the beach with her--
silky sting

Fortune melting
with change in the wind:
summer leaves

Glued to the rock
feeling the river's cold flame
my hands and feet

The wet pages
of yesterday's newspaper:
all trains late

Panting through kisses
convulses her bdy--
rhythmic petting

With fearing finger
touches her to reach the clit:
slides...soft...hard...slow...fast

White stubble
round his august chin--
saturday

Abandoned
her mother on the wall:
fading streaks

A yellow snake
slithers on the grass--
dewy trail of love

Orange streak
through the clouds--
seat belt fastened

THE PROMISED NEW AGE

The dawn is still asleep in the east.
Don't dupe us we are marching
toward the promised new age.

We can't cross the summit in one go.
The hollow bamboos and dry blades conspire
to drug us in our own name.

The summer loo batters the parched land.
The yellowed fields in May and June
will not green. It's never vernal here.

The palm-leaf fan can't quench the flame.
The vultures of the preliberation ddecades
are picking potatoes from a rotten heap.

The city is a cowered dog dazzling in neon.
They fight against evils and rots
with the anarchy of flags and slogans.

The flood in the Brahmaputra will turn men into fish.
They are not aware though I dream of the vast
land of lotus shining with young morning sun.

R.K.SINGH



Composed on 31 May 1980