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The Daily Verse
To make The Wise Owl more dynamic, we have introduced The Daily Verse, a segment where we upload poetry all days of the week. Just send in a poem to editor@thewiseowl.art
August 2026
Theme: The Room Within
Tuesday, 11th August 2026
Museum of Doors
By Aditi Garg
For decades, she collected doors—
banal, reflective, comforting and eclectic.
​
Liked them brined, taxidermied, air dried
or laminated, and orderly shelved. Orderly,
as in, chronological, alphabetical or whimsical.
Behind each door, a younger old version of
the form she phoenixed from. A rusty iron lock on
a trusted multi-decade friendship that frayed.
Loves she got bored with live barred
by slatted doors. Toll of a career tarries
behind a steel stall. A porcelain portal stands
tower-like where guilt made apologies futile.
Among broken promises, a limp straw door guards
ghosted calls and texts, ready to succumb
to a discomforting, familiarly plaintive thrum.
Scarcely ever she ventures far as the ebbing
and flowing, diseased and weeping door
of regret. Many a night, she’s at the jamb,
the ajar door making way for memories that
sing her lullabies before they are forever gone.
About the Author
Aditi Garg hosts a poetry reading circle 'Poetry by Other Poets' in Chandigarh. Her work has appeared in the Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2023, Tiffinbox Review, Poetry Experiment Anthology, Poems India, Gulmohur Quarterly, Hakara and others. She has been invited to share her poems at the Scarsdale Salon & Salon De Belleville, and SpokenWord Paris. She has written cover stories and articles for national dailies for more than two decades.
Monday, 10th August 2026
At the Joka Campus, 1977
By Abha Das Sarma
I would row to the island
at midnight,
looking up to the stars
that held us, that held all.
Always the same expanse,
the water
and the cold light.
Waiting
for the shower,
for a confession
under a vacant sky.
Dissolving
into midnight,
into the stars
that stayed,
that befriended time.
Poet's Note: This poem is based on my initial days at the IIM Calcutta campus in Joka, which had a natural lake. We were the first batch to live on that campus and I loved to row at nights.
About the Author
Abha Das Sarma lives in Bengaluru, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry X Hunger and elsewhere. She has also contributed to several anthologies, Pixie Dust & All Things Magical and Soul Spaces: Poems on Cities, Towns & Villages, among others.
Friday, 7th August 2026
Coffee break
By Shikhandin
A duck shaped cloud has laid an egg,
small and fluffy, and grey. I had prayed
for rain today and yesterday and the day
before, until my throat grew parched.
The egg gives me hope. Maybe it will
descend as mist and wet my cheeks.
Maybe it will grow and crack
thunderously into milk warm rain.
My sky is dry and serene like the Sargasso
sea. The season of Goddesses has bequeathed
gifts nobody needs. To be buried under
the uproarious year-end conglomeration.
Now my musings start to crumble.
A crow’s clarion shreds the air
cradling my mid-morning. My coffee
turns into a sludge of sawdust. And yet
The day remains wide open. Just like
my generous window, which gifts
me the cloud, now romping the sky
like a bosomy bunny. Its rump a tuft
of hope.
About the Author
Shikhandin is the pen name of an Indian writer. her books include Impetuous Women (Penguin-RHI), Woman on the Red Oxide Floor (Red River India) Immoderate Men (Speaking Tiger), Vibhuti Cat (Duckbill-Penguin-RHI) among others. Shikhandin’s poems are included in The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City edited by Bilal Moin, 2024. She has won awards and accolades for her work in India and abroad. Her prose and poetry are widely published and anthologised worldwide.
Thursday, 6th August 2026
Instructions to Clean a Brain
By Abha Iyengar
In yoga, they teach an exercise to clean your brain.
Unzip your skull ( theoretically) with your fingers
Remove your brain from within
Hold it in your hands as you would a watermelon
Then clean it ( scrub scrub scrub)
With soap you use for your face or bathing
Or perhaps you could even use shower gel,
(not so contemporary these instructions)
Clean it hard, then place it back in your head
And zip your skull up (all four sides).
Ah, if it were so simple.
And what about a writer’s brain
With its spider web of criss-crossed thoughts,
The whirling ideas caught like insects.
It would need so much cleaning.
I gave it some thought
And decided, no, my brain is good, zipped up,
A cleaning would render such a brain sterile.
The laughter exercise? That’s the better option for a writer
Laughing at the irony of the world and then putting it on paper.
About the Author
Abha Iyengar is an award winning, internationally published poet, writer, editor, translator (Hindi to English) and a British Council certified creative writing mentor. She is the founder of Creative Wings Studio where she mentors aspiring authors. She has 8 published books to her credit. Her latest book, ‘Big Daddy’s Chair: Stories’ was longlisted for the Kala Literature Awards, 2025.
Wednesday, 5th August 2026
The Hajjar
By Swati Basu Das
The Hajjar range stands bare before me.
Born when heaven was still young, its
As old as the stars, its motionless force
Like that of a towering giant, framed against
The endless wall of blue to the east outside
My French door, where my morning climbs
The zenith, and expires westward into eternity.
Born from horizon’s mystic womb, I see the
Somnolent sun floating up into the firmament,
Rising yet again from the depth of the molten
Azure heart, turning the turquoise tangerine.
The massif gently lifts Phoebus, carrying him on
Its rugged earthy shoulders; my eyes meet its
Ridges, ancient and frail, my skin feels the
Mellow breeze fondling its withering and
Erasing trails, where sky’s embers sprinkle glaze.
In its core where an emptiness is shaped, I
Hear a hymn of the Steppe Eagle soaring high;
Every new sunrise, its chasm grips my gaze.
About the Author
Born and raised in the City of Joy, Kolkata, India, Swati Basu Das now finds her muse beneath the desert skies of the Sultanate of Oman. A postgraduate in English Literature with a Master’s in Journalism and a Diploma in Public Relations, she has journeyed through the bustling newsrooms in India and Oman. Her short stories, flash fiction and poetry have found homes in FemAsia, Kitaab, The Wise Owl, Borderless Journal, and Whispering Saga Anthology. She writes of moments, people, cities, and silences. She finds solace in music, unplanned getaways, nature, cold coffee, and the words of John Keats, and Dostoevsky.
Tuesday, 4th August 2026
Anatomy of Absence
By Ritu Kamra Kumar
Do not ask where my wonder went.
It escaped one rain-rinsed evening through a crack in certainty.
Since then, I have carried my chest like a shuttered museum, its exhibits labelled Temporarily Removed for Restoration.
A flock of unpaid goodbyes nested beneath my collarbone, pecking patiently at the parchment of my pulse.
Meanwhile, memory worked as a meticulous moth, embroidering absence into every
garment of thought.
Some nights, I hear Odysseus rowing through the salt-dark corridors of sleep, still searching for Ithaca, while I search for a room inside myself.
Even the moon arrives late, a pale librarian, cataloguing losses on silver slips of light.
I tried replacing the missing parts.
I kept a choir of fireflies
beneath my breath.
I stored snippets of laughter in glass jars beside the ribs.
I borrowed a little courage from Dante, threading his way through a bewildering wilderness.
Yet the vacancy remained
not a wound, not even a scar
but a silent skylight
through which moonlight, memory, and migratory sorrows entered unannounced.
About the Author
Dr. Ritu Kamra Kumar, is an academician, poet, and writer. With over 400 contributions to leading national newspapers and magazines, she has published 70+ research papers in reputed national and international journals and edited books. A noted resource person and speaker, she has led workshops and panel discussions nationwide, including at the Delhi Book Fair 2024. Honoured by the District Administration and featured as an Empowered Woman by The Hindustan Times, she is a recipient of the Indian Woman Achiever Award and has authored eight acclaimed books.
Monday, 3rd August 2026
Where Silence Lives
By Deepa Srivastava
Midnight, Raining, the Sky outside is deep blue as if holding its breath
In my solitude, I hear my breathing, smelling like old books and rain
Same smell decades ago, in the library of Uncle, where I had fallen asleep
A hazy familiar face, hairy hands slipping under my pink frilled frock
I try to remember more, searching within, heaviness sits on my chest
Smell does not leave, moves silently to the room inside me and rests
I see the little girl I was then, abruptly I feel tired, call it a day
One quiet corner, one honest thought, that is enough for today
Dawn it is, I see the person I am now, holding indignation
Also a hope in the heart and a choice to mend the broken
Why the gnawing guilt, it was not my fault, No it was not
A small child I was, Innocent Gullible Helpless Vulnerable
Tears melt the guilt away and I see the person I am becoming
Anger softens into action, I close my eyes, what if it did not happen
I imagine the blueprint of my imagination, the healing begins
Clearly I see it, then I become it, now I will start building it
That memory does not vanish, the Smear of guilt does
Silence of that library still lives, it does not speak to me anymore
The air stings no longer, as I keep a corner of hope lit
On all days, even on heavy days, especially on heavy days
About the Author
Deepa Srivastava, a freelance writer, has nurtured a passion for poetry since childhood. Her poems and articles have been published in national and international journals and anthologies, a few awarded too. She has performed at numerous literary events. She took Voluntary Retirement from Government of India as Executive Director. In-service she commenced as founding Chief Editor, an in-house newsletter. An avid traveler, she draws inspiration from new places, cultures, and life experiences.