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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
Monday 31st August 2026
Hidden Universe
By Gopal Lahri
I don’t know how to say it, I want to go there; everyone
tells me it’s a figment of my imagination, it is just not
natural. But no one can see the lake inside me, feel the
cool water enveloping me, no sound, not even whisper.
The sky turns grey, I gently walk, my careful steps
cross the unknown threshold in gentle paces, the night
stares at me in sheer panic; moments set out in ecstasy,
a cry is heard from the bottom of my heart in shaky light.
Rare moment flows, someone awakens me from my deep
slumber, tells me to float a little above this terrain, to hold
my breath and cross the finishing line in a loud applause.
Come the sunlight and dust my shadows of childhood.
There is nothing in the world than the silence around me.
I let myself sink deep alone in my hidden universe.
About the Author
Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 33 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred fifty journals and anthologies globally His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 18 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. He has received Setu Excellence Award, Pittsburgh, US, in poetry in 2020. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024 for his significant contribution in Indian English Writing.
Thursday, 27th August 2026
Beyond the Ashes
By Vidya Shankar
Beyond the Ashes
The living room of my 1BHK has a certain vibrancy in spite of its mismatched display of colourful curtains, pictures, books, the TV, fairy lights. The bedroom, in contrast, is a cozy sapphire nest.
I am mostly glad, and grateful, I don’t have more rooms to deal with. You see, times when I miss him deeply, these lived-in walls close in on me. My chest constricts. My vision blurs, and not necessarily because of tears. A sharp pain creeps up my legs and lodges in my knee. My left knee, to be precise. The brightness and the blue then become something I want to run away from.
wilted rose
beneath a darkening stem
the moist of green
About the Author
Vidya Shankar, an English Language teacher, freelance editor, editing consultant, and writing coach, is presently promoting her third poetry book Light and Line Drawings written in collaboration with her friend and fellow poet, Sangita Kalarickal. A Touchstone longlisted poet (2024), her work has appeared in prestigious collections, namely, the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English and the Poetry Marathon anthologies. She is Associate Editor of haibun for haikuKATHA journal, and editor for two full length books and four anthologies. Featured in a unique coffee table book on 50 inspiring women of Chennai, Vidya loves singing, dancing, and making art. She finds meaning to her life through yoga.
Wednesday, 26th August 2026
The Ballad of Ashen Moors
By Anju Devadas R. D
Beneath the pale and mourning sky,
Where shadows kiss the shore,
She waited by the ashen moors,
For him who’d come no more.
Oh, winds, go tell the restless sea,
His heart is lost, yet bound to me.
Through blood and rain, through stone and flame,
I whisper still his broken name.
They met where wild violets grew,
By lanterns faint and gold,
He swore a vow beneath the stars
That love would not grow old.
But war called out with bitter horns,
Its drums like distant graves,
He left her with a trembling hand
And sailed on midnight waves.
Oh, winds, go tell the restless sea,
His heart is lost, yet bound to me.
Through blood and rain, through stone and flame,
I whisper still his broken name.
Three winters passed, the silence deep,
Her letters turned to dust,
And still she walked the haunted moors,
A pilgrim made of trust.
One storm-wrung night the whispers came,
Through tides both dark and wild,
A wreckage on the jagged rocks,
And in it – her lover’s smile.
They found her there at break of day,
The waves upon her knees,
Her body cold, her lips still warm,A song caught on the breeze.
Oh, winds, go tell the restless sea,
His soul has crossed eternity.
Through blood and rain, through stone and flame,
Together now, they bear one name.
About the Author
Anju Devadas R D is an academic and a poet. She is currently Guest Faculty at Department of English, Pondicherry University
​
Tuesday, 25th August 2026
The Room Within
By Alka Kansra
This is the place
where titles fall off
Not a daughter, not a wife, not a mother
This is the place
where labels go quiet
Not a poet, not a writer
No deadlines, no reviews, no expectations
Just silence
Just feeling
Just me
Inside me is a room
Walls that have seen it all
Floors that have felt it all
And still it lets me be
Alone, but not lonely
Wrapped in memories
Smelling of petrichor
Here I meet myself
With a diya unlit, yet glowing
Tired
Grateful
Human.
About the Author
Alka Kansra is a retired educationist and a prolific poet with several poetry collections to her credit
Monday, 24th August 2026
An Eternal Retreat
By Srividya Subramanian
Hidden away in the quiet recesses of my soul,
Far from the cacophonous tides of time
Where shadows melt, I’m stripped of every role,
Uncluttered corners breathe stories of my prime.
Little streaks of dawn pattern it in glorious gold,
Brushing away the yawning greys of yore,
I place my box of secrets in its credible folds,
My sanctuary, untouched upon a seething shore.
When I settle, on moonlit nights, by its large windows,
A serene, gentle caress calms my warring mind,
Outstretched palms try to hold the iridescent glows
That may break the chain of thoughts blind.
Sometimes, I wish to dissolve in its mystic love,
Live in forgotten dreams woven into rustic walls,
Undo painful strings of realism, soar like a dove
Where life never follows, death never calls.
I journeyed through verdant greens and rough rocks,
A silent watcher of cerulean skies and sudden storms,
I now stay in my room, insulated from all shocks,
Away from the shrinking world, it ne’er crumbles nor conforms.
About the Author
Srividya Subramanian is a senior teacher of English by profession and a writer by passion. She has published two poetry books, Whispers In Verse and Moods and Musings. She has contributed her pen creations to many anthologies and contests. She has been honoured with literary awards and certificates such as Kala Literature Award 2025 for best poetry book acknowledging her contributions. She hosts her myriad writings on her website, www.srividyascribbles.com.
Friday, 21st August 2026
Hope, Served Warm
By Lilit Anna Varghese
Hope is like a drink
sour as lemon,
spiced as tea,
sweet as jaggery.
It changes like dishes
on a quiet table,
with the room I’m in.
Hope is like steam —
warming, settling,
faith deepening,
happiness rising.
I sip it slow,
and become
Within it.
About the Author
Lilit Anna Varghese is a poet and educator from Adoor, Kerala. An A-Grade winner at the AIFEST International Poetry Writing Competition, her work appears in anthologies like _Beyond the Horizon_ and _Expressions on War Volume II_. She authored _Her Sighs, His Stage: Whispers from the Bard's Women_ and the IJFMR article _Voices of Unconsciousness in Romantic Works_. A member of AIFEST and ELTAI, she explores the human experience with emotional depth and literary insight.
Thursday, 20th August 2026
The Architecture of Lukewarm Tea
By Parminder Singh 'Aziz'
The room within has no doors, yet you walked out,
leaving the latch hanging like a broken promise.
Now, the silence here has a weight of its own,
sitting heavily on the edge of the unmade bed.
A stray beam of dust-flecked afternoon sunlight
still searches for the curve of your shoulder,
but finds only the hollow contour of your shadow.
I have left the tea to grow cold in two cups,
watching the steam dissolve like a half-spoken word
that hung between us before the evening turned.
The bookshelves hold your favourite spine upside down,
a quiet rebellion against the gravity of your going.
Every corner is crowded with the things you took,
and packed tightly with the vastness you left behind.
I wind the old clock, but time prefers to linger,
stuck in the crease of the curtain you used to pull.
The void is not empty; it is loud and inhabited,
wearing your old sweater, breathing through the drafts,
rearranging the furniture of my chest,
refusing to turn off the light when it leaves.
About the Author
Parminder Singh ‘Aziz’, an IT Professional-turned-educator is a doctorate in English, and a multilingual poet, translator and short story writer. He recently won a Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi grant for the manuscript of his Punjabi poetry book Ibadatnama (Unistar 2026).
Tuesday, 18th August 2026
A Spontaneous Thrum
By Neera Kashyap
A current of nagging insufficiency
An ache of incompleteness in a full day
A restless reminder, calling attention away
from experience, achievement, possessions,
becoming something, someone.
A reminder of what? From where does it come?
This....this... beckoning from…. within
of a current dissatisfied with surfaces
we touch without penetration,
dissatisfied with answers we receive
from the world's wavering web.
Suffering like a spur sharpens it's tug
not as our own will or initiative
but as an inner fire that
promises to burn incompleteness, restlessness,dissatisfaction, suffering… yearning.
Rising of its own from within our own
yet throbbing with the current of the Impersonal;a magnet that leads,
​if we let it.
About the Author
Neera Kashyap has published a book for young adults (Daring to Dream, Rupa & Co.) and contributed to several prize-winning children’s anthologies (Children’s Book Trust). Her poems, short stories, book reviews and essays have appeared in several national and international literary journals and anthologies. Her debut collections of poetry (The Art of Unboxing, Red River) and short fiction (Cracks in the Wall, Niyogi Books) were both published end July 2025.
Monday, 17th August 2026
The Secret
By Ketaki Mazumdar
in this corner…
is a room with an all-inclusive view…
my secret harbour of moonlight sonatas and sunlight rejuvenation…
it's here I converse with the world,
find my rhythms and ragas,
fly without vulnerable shame or fear,
it's here I absorb nature’s beauty,
my joys and childlike awe…
a secret hideaway…
where lies a prism that colours my life with abundance…
fragrances my soul-talk…
where the unsaid scripts of my past, my now and my future…
weave pictures in conversations of a secret and a mystical
…overwhelming joy…
it's here I pause and say thank you.
About the Author
Award winning Indian Poet, Ketaki Mazumdar, delves deeply into Nature, life, mysticism, culture and spirituality. She writes
authentically keenly observing every nuance of life. Born in Kolkata, she now resides in Mumbai surrounded by her plants, flowers and birds. A prolific writer, her published books “Woodsmoke and Embers”, “Toasted Orange Embers”, and “Whispered Secrets”, have won her numerous literary awards and appreciation, internationally and in India. Her poems are visual in context and touch the readers with quiet strength, empathy and soulful conviction.
Friday, 14th August 2026
Mapping Unseen Architectures
By Sunil Sharma
The trellis vine produces an openwork filigree of the
silhouetted spirals on Virginia Woolf, resting on desk.
Green hands bend to kiss the lilies on the finely-cut stems,
thoughtfully placed in the crystal vase.
Soft-blush-toned afternoon taps on the windowpanes, hoping for
furtive glances from smoky eyes; the fluttering long lashes, pout,
dramatized by accented lights and stack of books for Instagram.
Coffee waits for the blurred lips.
An open diary and a pen, pools of brilliance and gloom. Velvety
hum of the inner space morphs into syllables, not fully formed yet.
Stillness carries some dew-fresh bars of a low-key music, heard within.
Zero chatter. The hushed winds talk of the hidden realms.
A verse uncurls in the nook, slow-motion, levitates into blanks, becomes a
complete unit of meaning.
The cascade of flower petals falls gently into the stretched palms smudged
with colours. The vernal showers irrigate insides with the aroma of delayed
spring, re-lived, another age and location.
About the Author
Sunil Sharma: an academic, critic, literary editor and author with 29 published books: solo and joint. The recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ Inaugural Poet of the Year award 2012, the Panorama Golden Globe Award-2023, and, Nissim Award for Excellence-2022 for the political novel Minotaur. His poems were published in the UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.
Thursday, 13th August 2026
The Window
By Anjana Vipin
Gazing out the window
became a crutch
whenever I needed a poem.
The first poem I wrote
for my college magazine
was about a leaf clinging
to its bent stalk,
though I didn't bother to climb down
two sets of red-oxide steps
in the monsoon rain
to feel the leaf’s outline
with my fingertips.
On a hot summer day,
there was nothing to see
but a leaf drying on the roof shingles
of the opposite house.
I looked inside—
the dust trapped between the old floorboards—
crushed gold.
About the Author
Anjana Vipin Edakkunny is a writer from Kerala, India currently residing in the United States. Her work often engages with myth, memory, and contemporary experience, tracing how they bleed into one another. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Target Global Magazine, Poetry Potion, Borderless Journal, PoemsIndia, Zhagaram Literary Magazine, DoubleSpeak Magazine, Spillwords, Inverse Journal, Ghudsavar Literary Magazine, and the daily verse section of The Wise Owl. Her debut collection, The Sandalwood Pyre, is forthcoming from Writers Workshop, Kolkata.
Wednesday, 12th August 2026
How a Story is Born
By Sreelekha Chatterjee
To unveil an attendance within burns a twitching urge,
a literary zugunruhe—mind pacing as if a confined bee—
when my pulses flutter amid migration to the womb-hidden story.
My respiring room quietens my frame, away from sun and rain,
not my itinerant mind, still only if the furniture readies to rhyme.
Silence and spontaneity remain a distant dream,
brightness followed by the humdrum of daily prescribed existence,
commotion as if of passing motorcades, loud cawing of crows,
insistent throaty coos of pigeons demanding to be seen.
Here my life passes, messed and tempered by societal whims;
if only I knew its tantrums, pictured beforehand
like I see the world through my distracting glass door.
Unknowingly, I reach there, my fingers ready
to dance on the impatient keyboard.
That’s the moment when the black plum tree outside
falls asleep, the birds forget their language,
the air hangs in inviolable silence, space waits in anticipation.
My ear fixed to the seashell of inner voice,
mind tipsy with the flow of word waves;
witnessing the wonder on screen, an ancient peace resumes life.
About the Author
Sreelekha Chatterjee’s poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Rough Diamond Poetry, Black Bough Poetry, Ballerini Book Press, The Literary Nest, Frontier Press, The Gorko Gazette, The Bloomin’ Onion, among others. Her poems have been widely published in more than fifty journals, magazines, and anthologies globally across fifteen countries, and translated into Korean and Romanian languages. She has recently won The Chai Magazine’s Volume III Writing Contest – Vayu (Poetry category), 2026. She lives in New Delhi, India.
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.