One Poem & Seven Senryu by Neera Kashyap

Dawn

 

They must be my ancestors…these shadowy figures in my dreams.

They slip in with people I know, inviting me to know them too.

I ignore them till I see they are friendly when with the unfriendly,

it is possible to find a friend in an unfriendly world.

Sometimes they turn into pigs, dark and hairy, swilling in filth,

the possibility perhaps that beneath friendliness, there is filth and greed.

In them, in others. No, in me… this after recurrent nights of seeing, noting.

Propelling anxiety but also the calm of finding ways out of swills in

filth and greed.

Sometimes they come with friendly people but feel unfriendly,

the possibility perhaps of something beyond easy friendliness.

Sometimes they turn into still things like a hill at dawn.

Aloof but not unfriendly; Remote but not distant.

No, not unfriendly….

for the hill is calm, lit with the gold of dawn.

 

 

Senryu

 

Alice’s rabbit hole

my chaotic dreams

mirror my madness

peach dreams

I stumble to the fridge

bitter gourd

old hurts

drift in and out of

dreams

pilgrim’s path

a brook burbles over

my bruises

my kite sky high no strings

battle-ax

her dreadful barbs…

healing flashpoints

threading needle -

thread splits...

I pull the half that comes

Neera Kashyap has authored a book for young adults, ‘Daring to Dream’ and contributed to several prize-winning anthologies for children. As a writer of short fiction, poetry, book reviews and essays, her work has appeared in several international literary journals and poetry anthologies. The poetry journals include Verse Virtual, Life & Legends, Failed Haiku and Setu Magazine (USA); RIC Journal (Indo-French); Kitaab (Singapore); The Punch Magazine, Teesta Review and The Wise Owl (India). The publishers of the anthologies include Indie Blu, Transcendent Press, Setu Mag (USA) Clarendon Press (UK) and Hawakal, Write Order, Author's Press, Exceller & Brown Critique (India). She lives in Delhi.