SOMETHING LIKE HAIKU

SOMETHING LIKE HAIKU

by Fazal Rahman on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 11:35am ·

1.
NARCISSUS GOES FACEBOOK
Drained riverbeds.
Narcissus
goes facebook.

2.
NATIVITY
Starless east
The Magi retrace steps,
And the Child unborn

3.
AN ARACHNOPHOEBE IN SEVEN SLEEPERS’ DEN
An arachnophoebe in seven sleepers’ den
Insomniac
Two centuries.

4.
Demented street-walker
Humming lullabies
Unburied foetus all ears
(This one is particularly close to my heart since this is from one of my worst nightmares. The street-walker actually roamed my hometown some years back. It was rumored that she was being continuously abused, even at that advanced age and in that emaciated form, on a daily basis by nocturnal nobodys and she endured it with chilling indifference: 'like a log' was the term. One of the most heart breaking sights, she at times used to cuddle with a small piece of log, mumbling coarse indiscriminate tunes. She was living her own Comala)

5.
Computerate granny
mouse-tells Cinderella
in 3-D

6.
A day for sleep-walkers:
At traffic post
Cop hangs himself

7.
WAR-ZONE PIETA
Pandemonium of riots,
Dissipated child in lap
War-zone Pieta.

8.
PAEDOPHILE AT SUPERMARKET
Panick’d little eyes search “mom…!”
A foxy smile helps out “back home...”
It’s game time.
xxxx
(‘Game’ may also suggest predator’s prey or kill)

9.
MY OWN PEDRO PARAMO
In the wee hours, post-passions,
stalkers from past dark,
ghosts of my Comala.

10.
Dream team seraphim
Safe under lids
Day break martyrs.

11.
DOOMSDAY FOR STRAY DOGS

stray dogs teeming;
hired hunters on the prowl:

parody of genocide.

12.
STREET ARTIST BOWS OUT
at street corner, off a tight rope,
a mangled heap below:
call it a day.

13.
SUBURBAN DAWNS
Riding stealthy bikes,
Finance men grin at tin doors
dark-skinned, dagger-eyed.
(In Malabar area ‘micro-finance’ business is almost completely monopolized by men hailing from Tamil Nadu. They are identified with certain traits:  they are distinctly dark-skinned, they are total strangers to locals except their clients, they have a way of coming surreptitiously the first thing in the morning allowing no time for clients to leave home, they use almost inaudible new generation bikes, and, above all, they are menacing.)


14.
PEASANT SUICIDES

a life-time toil in soil wasted;
Sisyphus under tin roof
resigns.

15.
MOURNING DEAD RIVER

Slimy ravines mourn
Sandy days of spry streams
Fish for fowl ‘n drink for flora.

16.

HUNGER-STRUCK!
Vital stats demand
Wasted ramp girl done with.
Tasteless hunger.



17.
NOCTURNAL SHADOWS

psychedelic night
moonbeams phantasmagoric
shadows of lost loves

18.
NO WOMEN’S LAND
strutting mein kampf look
phallic orgiastic
wombless bastards

19.
HIRED KILLERS
hell-bent crusaders
of fast buck theology
possessed short-time thugs

20.
THE MACHO
flaunting icy looks,                                                                          
feigning tough mute bravado
creature of nowhere

21.
In limbo no one dies
living sans hopes memories
ogling hells black holes

22.
BIRTHDAY BOY

When born protesting
ripped off maternal heaven
honey you made me

(April 7- birthday of my first-born)

23.
Deluge rising up
Inside Noah’s ark, what’s up but
Decameron Tales!

24.
THE NYMPHS ARE DEPARTING WITHOUT ADIEU!
Poor maids have twin lives:
They dream Cinderella
And live Esmeralda*.

*(Esmeralda, the doomed gypsy girl in Victor Hugo's ‘The Hunchback of Notre dam’ falls desperately for the young Captain Phoebes , who, in turn, is only interested in her beauty, not even caring to memorize her name and quite nonchalantly misnomers her 'Similar’.)


25.
Fear is a grownups’ disease.
They don’t freeze at anything:
the little champs.

26.
MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE
Down memory lane
they all smell kerosene:
my great authors.

(Before electricity came, kerosene lamps were used- Fazal))

27.
‘Eternal’ is fake.
Life sans death is no life;
‘In time’ is the thing.

28.
SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS
Wanna know summer rain?
Live under a thatched roof
where it leaks in profusely.

29.

Sunstroke April-
no time for wet dreams
Time for water dreams

A whiff of cold wind
soft-spoken herald-
It's raining in the plains

First rain drizzles
sweeps soon to downpour
It's chorus hymeneal.

Rain-drenched verdure
shuddering, still, dripping.
Willingly forced.

30.
SEED ROOTS BRANCHES

Seed-
A tree in conception divine
birds beasts await
Nativity

Roots
holy questers
Of ancestral blessings
In earth’s bowels

Branches
star-bent dreamers
of horizons mapped
by children to come

31
Crab on beach
short trip to sea-gull’s beak
a haiku on sand


32
FIRST SUMMER RAIN
First summer rain beats
parched earth sweats inferno.
Purgatory now!

Rain moths aplenty,
dwarfish dinosaurs on wall
mime Jurassic days

33.
Drowned kid’s funeral
Stilled in prime, silent tears
A lone petal afloat

34.
AMNESIC
Groping dark alleys
of long-forsaken boarding.

Tenant with no key

35.
Flames of funeral pyre
decrypt horoscopes
encrypted in skull