The Tweeting Haijin

spring sunrise alien buds unfold under a UV lamp telepathic sages praise the verdant day which mindset will go best with new baseball cap? mating dance of the spybot insects her aura color clearly tells she came to say good bye! hunting in Triangulum for a new home planet then the blood moon was branded with a coca-cola ad armalcolite scarecrow in the cell culture lab face to face with a row of clones in the identity parade isolation zone guard beatboxing to himself my jetcar slows as the fusion reactor blows a valve just woken from the stillness of the cryo-dream Participating poets Roman Lyakhovetsky: verses 1 (hokku), 3 (daisan), 5, 11 Elizabeth McFarland: verses 2, 4, 7, 9,12 (ageku) Raamesh Gowri Raghavan: verses 6, 8, 10 Scheme jo (verses 1-3), ha (verses 4-8), kyu (verses 9-12) Tomegaki by Roman    The great Edgar Allan Poe once wrote: "A poem in my opinion is opposed to a work of science by having for its immediate object pleasure, not truth.”  Sci-fi themed poetr...

He was a Sainik School boy, since his 6th standard, then NDA, then IMA. 45 years of marriage to my mother did not get that out of his system. I was internally devastated as we wheelchaired him to the Navy hospital ward. He'd lost weight and energy and, as it seemed, the will to live. At the Navy hospital, we weren't allowed to stay or minister to him. I thought I had seen the last of him. In the night call with mother he told us what he ate at the Naval hospital: noodles and manchurian for lunch, chapati-dal-subzi for dinner. We had struggled for weeks as he nauseated food, and ate nothing but thin buttermilk. That was his home, among the men in uniform. The boy just got home, after 30 years in the wilderness of civilian life. finally finding what our pet likes eating most — attention Published in Glomag May 2025

 

 buddha moon this quiet heartbreak of losing a father to his ageing heart muscles flower moon this May breeze has no sense of romance secondhand moon hoping the flowers last one more pooja yellowing the puja flowers thrown away at moonset ripe yellow among the jack-leaves morning moon night three the moon and the flowers both wilted Published at Cafe Haiku on 14/05/2023 as part of a group writing effort for the 'Flower Moon'.

 Four sets of Haiku translated into Sanskrit (not perfect!): https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/abhyagata-palika/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/hasteh-chayayam-in-the-elephants-shadow/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/18/vasanta-gandham-spring-fragrance/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/garjana-dhwani-the-thunder/

 drinking up a mountain of ice tea — summer heat Holi advent… all the colours of the water guns neighbour’s plants — Amma’s acrobatics to water them potted plants — we redirect or neighbour’s A/C drip after last rites resealing the pot of gangajal summer forenoon sparrows turn our dog’s bowl into a bath (Published in Cafe Haiku on 04/04/2021 for the theme of "Water")

 cliffhanger I hope for yesterday’s dream again in the window what do you dream of mynah eyes evening breeze stooping to pick up yellowed dreams winter solstice do androids dream of electric sheep last post — those dreams that never became memories avoiding traffic the back alleys of a self I’ve never explored divorce court all that that never was glass facade all the blue skies trapped within (Published in Cafe Haiku on 14/04/2022 as part of the theme "Dreams") Author

old bricks the peepal still finds space to make home (Published in Cafe Haiku on 18/11/2022 as a haiga)

 dusk light looking for fairytales that don't end (Published in Cafe Haiku on 19/11/2022 as a haiga)

 velvet lining my blank canvas blank still (Published in Cafe Haiku on 22/11/2022 as a haiga)

 Keys to a bicycle. Photographs of grandparents. A chewed block of wood, with the teeth marks of a dead pet. A diploma, tattered at the edges. My baba-suit, enshrined in crinkly tissue paper. A large collection of mismatched socks. first cry my newborn father wipes his face (Published in Cafe Haiku on 01/12/2022)

 highlighting the gulmohar’s redness koel calls pooja flowers the rain gods claim them for their own non-violence… our Ganesha makes do with fallen flowers flower shop — I just stand by to watch the bees last gong – the bare maidan bursts a-flower (Published in Cafe Haiku on 17/04/2023)

 Morning Dog … is what Myshka is not. The thought of a walk in the dawn chill fills her with dread. She stays curled up till the sunbeams light up her nose. evensong the koel’s notes sleepier * Jerky Justice Unlike the fable, the monkey (I) ends up overfeeding to keep the balance between the senior and junior retrievers. sibling envy the aggression in the tail wags * Moving On “You don’t make me wet anymore” she said drily. dried petal now who was it exactly? (Published in Cafe Haiku on 29/04/2023)

winter clouds this silent scream in my eyes The loo stinks, the tap runs and can't be closed. The risk of dying of a urinary tract infection or asphyxiation is still the same. The sole policeman visible, young and unarmed, is ostensibly guarding the ladies' first class. The rather bright lights are a change though, but they seem to make the place seem a wee bit less crowded. Seem. There are people sitting on the platform, waiting for their trains. Many in their Sunday best. Popcorn-sellers, peanut-sellers, kulfi-sellers are trying to get me to shed some money towards them, even as I wait for the samosa-seller. yellow leaves the old woman sweeps up yesterday It's getting on eight (time for the Titwala Fast to leave), and last-minute boarders are jumping in. The popcorn-seller is taking his last chances before he moves to the 8:13 Khopoli Slow. I don't know how many of the guys around me are pass-holders or even bothered to buy tickets. I do know the police didn...

soleil d'âpres-midi… un petit somme entre les nuages afternoon sun… a little nap between the clouds (Published in Ardea , Issue 6)

a leaf whirling in a pond’s eddy . . . my daily trip from bed to work desk in the new metro (Published in on the cusp of dawn : 25 tanka poets from India )

Our e-book, the taste of sea breeze , was published as a celebration of two years of IN haiku Mumbai . This anthology contains haiku, tanka, senryu, haibun and renku, alongside a form which we think we invented - the renbun (haibun linked to each other on the lines of renku). Available on Amazon.in , it is edited by Rohini Gupta ( who also did the cover ), with contributions from Paresh Tiwari, Mahrukh Bulsara, Brijesh Raj, Gautam Nadkarni, Sandra Martyres, Kasturi Jadhav, Rochelle Potkar and yours truly. Here are a few reviews so far on the Amazon page : A Lovely Tasting! (Kashmira Raj on 16 July 2016) For Haiku lovers, this book packs a punch. There are some pleasant surprises here and I found several 'aha' moments. Some verses have touched the heart bringing to mind visions from my past. The beauty of this is that it sometimes evokes an entire thought process, different from what the writer may have meant to convey, thereby leaving an indelible mark. Not only th...

as summer and Cygnus’s journey come to an end a bevy of swans flying southward (Published in Skylark Winter 2014)

graveyard shift the nodding taxi driver keeps me awake (Published in Whispers August 2016)

crow pheasant         — a dash of orange this sunless dawn (Published in Whispers August 2016)