POET OF THE MONTH
The Wish Flag
By Pravat Kumar Padhy
Conflict and competition
eclipse the voice of the mass.
Slogans of demand and supply
hijack the prime spot
with a mere footnote on clean energy.
The ice sheet melts into
grief-stridden flow.
The green turns into brown
and further into barren.
No space for the frogs,
chirpings of birds
Red velvet mites, buzzing of bees
in this concrete jungle.
Clouds blackened with smoke,
no ripples of joy in lakes,
often laden with caustic foams.
Mountain slopes
caved in with naked trees.
No ferry of floating clouds and
the sky no longer decked with
smiles of rainbow.
Waterfalls
soaked with cracked stone
River bed
left with wide mud-cracks
as the sea rises and invades
deep beyond the shore.
I wish poetry
of the living world
to shape the hues of nature
and sing together the muse
for a colourful world.
A Floating Cloud
By Pravat Kumar Padhy
Floating clouds in the sky
In a destined path they move
As if hanging from the roof.
Often stop for a while
Over the mountain range
People laurel as the silver crown.
Play hide and seek
In the dark midnight
With the cheerful full moon.
Painter embroider
Poets wistfully deck them all
With syllables of ornament.
As time escapes through
They turn old and dense
And sacrifice in the form of rain.
A great allegiance
For the cause of others
And wish to be born and float again
Life is a floating cloud
Let us bloom it
with fragrance love and peace.
Pravat Kumar Padhy, a scientist, poet and essayist, is based in Bhubaneswar, India. He is a mainstream poet and a writer of Japanese short forms of poetry. His literary work is cited in Interviews with Indian Writing in English, Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, History of Contemporary Indian English Poetry, etc. Pravat’s haiku are featured at Mann Library, Cornell University and “Haiku Wall”, Historic Liberty Theatre Gallery in Bend, Oregon, USA. He introduced new forms of poetry: Hainka: a fusion of haiku and tanka, Micro-Haiga and Braided Haiku.