Daily Verse
Week 1, April 2025
Pure Reflections
By Mehak Varun 1st April 2025
Whispers drift through emerald canopies,
Where sunlight splinters into dappled gold,
And the wind, with its gentle, wandering hands,
Stirs the slumbering scent of earth and rain.
Leaves murmur secrets to the trembling grass,
Each blade leaning closer, as if to listen,
While moss-covered stones hum softly,
Their memories seeping into the stream’s song.
In the hush of dawn, the forest exhales—
Breathing out the echoes of a thousand springs,
Where roots once clung to yesterday’s rain,
And petals wept for fleeting summers.
Here, the green speaks in fragments,
In rustling prayers and chlorophyll sighs,
In the fleeting hush of a falling leaf,
And the linger of footsteps fading into fern.
The earth keeps no record of time,
Only the echo of it—
A soft and solemn hymn
In the verdant hush of forever.
A Human Reimagined
By Sitara Leela 3rd April 2025
She emerged out of her deep cave
Out of Kali's womb, shimmering
Into the wider spaciousness of
The ever ~ present, ever ~ moving
in rippling Saundarya Lahiri.
Transcending into a human,
she churned for years
for centuries
for lifetimes
from a grace sucking,
uroborous
Into
beauty and gentle presence.
She was a river
Mutilated, ghosted
Forgotten, a shadow
Becoming dark waters,
Tumultuous, wrath ~ fuelled.
A river that suspends itself in herself,
In her own grief,
penury,
tapas clearing
unbecoming,
a river that now flows both ways.
She is the coalescence of dark
With its light,
Of Shiva with his Shakti,
a heart wholesome and spacious.
She is the very essence of moksha,
A goddess arriving
like Monet’s pond of water lilies.
This presence, that is birthed,
In this living moment
Is one’s humanness.
Poems
By Joanna Ashwell 42nd April 2025
lighter days
the rebirth of us
in a cotton sky
pansy buds
covered in snow
early moonrise
happiness
becoming the river
of spring gold
Verdant Echoes
By Jahnavi Gogoi 6th April 2025
smiling through tears
bluebells in
the rain
whispering secrets
my sister and i
yellow daffodils
unfurling its coil
the fern too learns
to take up space
What is the Word
By Vinita Agrawal 7th April 2025
for
a pool beneath a waterfall
the shape of a bend in a river
a heart, clenched and heavy, holding rain
tomorrow‘s numbness waiting in the wings
beaten skin
bruised breaths
hollow hours
hugs contusions give themselves
days where sunlight does not reach
seeing oneself on a stranger’s bookshelf
the key that returns you home
the sound of mother humming?
Biographies of Poets
Writer, poet, an artist, Mehak Varun, is the author of four books - THE Humane Quest vol 1, 2 & 3 and & I am Me. She has been bestowed with 100 Inspiring Authors of India Award in Kolkata. She has also been honoured with the Women Of Influence 2019 award presented on women's day in New Delhi. Along with her books, her work has been published in various anthologies. She has also been certified with a course on persuasive writing and public speaking from Harvard.
Sitara Leela is a dreamwalker poet and oracular storyteller, who resides in her sanctuary in the city of Kochi, Kerala.
Joanna Ashwell is a short form poet (from the UK) who writes Haiku, Tanka, Haibun, Cherita and other related forms. She has published four collections of poetry. Between Moonlight a collection of haiku was published by Hub Editions in 2006. Her tanka collection ‘Every Star’ was published by KDP on Amazon in 2023. Her Cherita collection ‘River Lanterns’ was published by 1-2-3 Press on Amazon in 2023. She currently serves on the selection team for the Canadian Tanka Journal GUSTS.
Vinita Agrawal has authored five books of poetry, - Twilight Language (Winner of the Proverse Prize 2021), Two Full Moons (Bombaykala Books), Words Not Spoken (Brown Critique), The Longest Pleasure (Finishing Line Press) and The Silk Of Hunger (AuthorsPress), Vinita is an award winning poet, editor, translator and curator. Joint Recipient of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2018 and winner of the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence, USA, 2015. She is Poetry Editor with Usawa Literary Review. Her work has been widely published and anthologised.
Jahnavi Gogoi is a Canadian poet who spent her formative years in Assam, India.Over the years, her work has been published in various publications across the world . She writes a lot about the natural world and the beauty around her. She lives in the town of Ajax in Ontario with her family and loves to read thrillers and write poetry.
Week 2, April 2025
Universe waits for Existence
By Chitra Gopalakrishnan 8th April 2025
Green tendrils heavy with pods
Fragile and florescent
Embark with hope on rough bamboo racks
Fragrant violet flowers among velvet leaves
Wellsprings of energy
Divulge secrets of their fertility
Columns of oblong bottle gourds
Lush and languorous
Sing of an entire world’s dream
And, bumblebees foraging for pollen
Echoing blobs of black and yellow
Nectar a new universe into existence
Equinox (A Ghazal)
by Anju Kishore 1oth April 2025
They say my path is bursting with pink trumpets this March
But my heart is still beating to winter’s footsteps this March
What is it about loss that what is lost is lost again
And again denials spun me their cold, dark nets this March
The dimness of my winter has so left me groping
That all I’ve found are a handful of regrets this March
Friends walked up but hastened their pace past my house
As if struck it was by the plague not tempests this March
What do they know of prayer beads rolled from torn sails
Those who revelled in sunshine on their doorsteps this march
I chanted the name of the one blossom denied to me
Alas, Spring herself was turned away by my frets this March
Now I sit still, a flower on each of my fingertips
Watching my winter go as far as it gets this March
Why gaze at the heavens when the earth’s such a feast, they askTell them that Anjum’s been freed from seasonal debts this March
Spring in my Gait
By Sunil Kaushal 9th April 2025
“Sonth” They call the season back home.
The blooming saffron fields, sparkling landscapes,
the throbbing, pulsating earth and the verdant greenery.
Birds chirping in avian mirth, heralding a new birth.
Joyous footsteps on the trekking trails,
and majestic chinars rustling happily.
It is as if the earth has magically realized its worth.
The Zabarwan Hills play host to fluffy clouds,
smiling their infectious gold- tinted smiles.
Tulips shimmer and tourists stroll under almond trees,
which are clad in fragile white and pink finery.
As a tiny imp, I often lamented the disappearance of the snowman,
with the first hint of spring. Did it merge with the crystal clear stream?
Yay, I could see a carrot, in the stream.
Actually, its Pinocchio nose bobbing up and down,
while my little brother played the clown,
his golden hair more golden, trying to retrieve the nose.
Oops, the carrot from the stream!
Long back, while strolling with his sister,
around Glencoyne Bay in the Lake District,
Wordsworth had spied ‘a host, of golden daffodils,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’
Not very long back, while strolling with my kid brother
near the River Lidder, I glimpsed a breathtaking scene.
Myriad hued, wildflowers swayed in vibrant queues.
I can’t say whether their dance was sprightlier
than the dance of Wordworth’s daffodils-
but it was sprightly- and it was a dance!
There was spring at my gate.
There was spring in my gait.
The Cruelest Month
By Shweta Sahai 14th April 2025
April sings an aubade
As the rude Sun divvies up
The white snow into blue rivers
Heliotropes struggle out
From the clammy clods of earth
After all that lugubrious cold
The balmy sunshine is benison
Brown trees unfurl their leaves
Like gossipers whispering canards
Into the atmosphere
Old lady winter is segueing
Smoothly into spring of youth
Travelling back through the
Byzantine paths of time
Resting in eternity
As people coddiwomple
Through the vagaries of life
Because April is ‘the cruelest month’*
I stand at the crossroads of seasons
Infatuated beyond reason
Spring
by Mridula Sharma 11th March 2025
Ah, spring!
The spring breeze
barely whispers
and the yellow brown confetti
takes the cue
It floats around
and falls in a shower
from age gnarled branches
detached and merry
On the gleaming metalled road
little leafy waves eddy up behind moving vehicles
whooping soundlessly
at their own prank—
their farewell jig
The new green
shimmers against the clear blue
squints at the sun
curiously
finger in the mouth
infantile
Mango sprays crumble
into sheer fragrance
Surrender
at the slightest hint
of a touch
Heady
with dreams
of abundance,
sweet and tangy
Little school girls —
Alyssums and pansies
Eyes crinkling in laughter
a tantalising little secret
fluttering palpably
through their huddle
as someone passes by
I watch this party play out
from where I grow
and where I remain
perennial
On my branches
thorny reminders
of resilience,
of a life lived.
I am the bougainvillea.
I know all that I can’t be
anymore
But in me
you will hear
the distinct hum of spring
As I burst forth anew
each time
Bold
Fuchsia
Stunning
Biographies of Poets
Chitra Gopalakrishnan, a New Delhi-based journalist and a social development communications consultant uses her ardour for writing, wing to wing, to break firewalls between nonfiction and fiction, narratology and psychoanalysis, marginalia and manuscript and treeism and capitalism. Author website: www.chitragopalakrishnan.com
Santosh Bakaya is a Ph.D., a poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, Tedx speaker and has authored as many as twenty-three books across different genres. She is the Winner of Reuel International Award for poetry [2014] and Setu Award for her stellar contribution to world literature [2018]. She has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu. Her biography on Martin Luther King Jr. Only in Darkness can you see the Stars has also been critically acclaimed. Her latest book is Runcible Spoons and Pea-green Boats. She pens a weekly column called Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity. Com.
Anju Kishore is a Pushcart (Poetry) Prize 2022 and 2024 nominee, a Touchstone Award 2023 longlister, and an award-winning editor of numerous free-verse anthologies. Her first book of poems, ‘…and I Stop to Listen’ was published in 2018 and her second book, ‘My Conversations with God, Life, and Death’ in 2025. Her poems are part of significant anthologies like Aatish 2, The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2022 and 2023(Hawakal and Pippa Rann Books, UK respectively), and Late-blooming Cherries 2024 (Haiku Poetry from India, Harper Collins). She has dabbled in online theatre and is currently exploring Japanese forms of poetry.
Mridula Sharma is an erudite scholar and Associate Professor (English) at MCM DAV College Chandigarh. She is a poet and writer.
Satbir Chadha is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “For God Loves Foolish People”, for which she was awarded the Reuel International prize. Her second novel is “Betrayed, tale of a rogue surgeon”, a medical thriller. She has been published in over twenty national and international anthologies, containing poetry and short stories. She has three solo poetry collections to her credit, “Breeze”, “Glass Doors”, and the recent “The Last Lamp”. She was awarded the Litpreneur Award by Authorspress for her contribution to literature. She is also the founder of the NISSIM International Prize for Literature, awarded every year to upcoming writers of English prose and poetry.
Week 3, March 2025
A Meaning in the making
By Nidhi Rana 19th March 2025
They made her feel
that she was the chaos
in every order,
the concealed seed of discord,
in each note of harmony,
the envy that brewed
in her lack of attention
or in the awareness
of her criticism.
She found herself scraping
to be the truth
she could breathe into her voice,
the ego she must master.
She needed to be the eloquence
that hid in shadows
of feeling too much, too deeply,
which obscured reason,
lurking like a mirage,
on the horizon of
answers given and questions asked.
She coerced herself
to cross over the threshold
to step over the line
to breach the bounds of her being
to embark on a new journey
that speared inwards.
She bludgeoned herself
to transform,
metamorphosize,
to translate,
into a benediction of time.
She created herself into that woman,
who was her own meaning in the making!!
Micropoems
by Snigdha Agrawal 18th March 2025
once nubile,
the cynosure of all eyes,
spring in her gait,
now confined within a shell
etched by time,
her seasons entwined,
blossom to wither
…ephemeral
renewal...
buds unfurl,
memories stir
winter-worn hands
crave the sun’s embrace
rebirth...
green pierces through
melting snow
on her water bed
she floats downstream
to her springtime
where roots remember
and silence blooms
Hibiscus
By Radha Chakravarty 21st March 2025
every day, Ma,
in cupped palms you offered
a fresh-plucked red hibiscus
to your god, singing prayers
for our souls every day
until one day the song abandoned you
and the hibiscus bloomed un-plucked,
until, sighing, it shed blood red petals
like scattered droplets
of your disintegrating mind
day by day, slowly
your old self left us
shedding cells of memory
like a snake’s discarded skin
leaving a vanishing trail
of clues to who you once were
or might have been
every day, slowly,
you lost your way
in the forest of forgetting,
knew our faces, yet
mistook our names
until one day you saw us as strangers
old songs lingered longest
in your mind’s bewildered hive
tuneless crooning affirming
you were there still though lost
somewhere in the forest
of forgetting
until one day the music stopped
and you turned a deaf ear to our calls
your fragile helpless hand
groping for a grip
on the handles of old familiar things
as we too struggled to hold on
to the you we knew
holding in desperate hands
your frail frame as you forgot
slowly, slowly, day by day,
how to see, hear, touch, feel, and pray
until one day,
that day you went away,
a red hibiscus bloomed in the garden
in blood red glory
and we knew, then, where to find you still,
we knew then where the lost trail led
Haiku
By Guiliana Ravaglia, 20th March 2025
fresh hyacinths -
my barefoot heart
anchored in the sky
kite -
I still run after you
my disheveled spring
scattered in the wind
dandelion seeds -
a new journey
March: The in-between
By Nishi Chawla 24th March 2025
March walks in on brittle bones,
neither keeper nor wanderer,
only a thin breath between endings and beginnings.
The trees, indecisive, hold their bare arms aloft,
not yet convinced by the hush of warmth crawling
beneath the frozen ribs of the earth.
Somewhere, a river forgets its ice,
splinters it off in slow abandonment,
sending jagged memory downstream.
The fields exhale in patches,
the sun lingers longest, frost withdraws,
the shadow still leans, the cold clings.
Clouds move, hands rearranging sky,
pulling blue from the folds of winter’s coat,
the wind, unfinished in its work,
still carries the scent of distance.
The birds return in increments,
not in triumph but in careful measure,
testing the air like a child pressing toes
into uncertain water.
At night, the thaw retreats,
a temporary surrender to the past.
come morning, the earth shifts again,
an unseen hinge creaking toward bloom.
March, the doorway no one lingers in,
unfinished sentence before the verb,
the tide before it fully turns,
a waiting place where nothing stays
but everything changes.
Biographies of Poets
Dr. Nidhi Rana is an Assistant Professor in English in Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector-42, Chandigarh. Recipient of the prestigious State Award 2021 for her meritorious service, she has also edited two Coffee table books for the UT Chandigarh Administration. She writes poetry and short stories to give voice to her experiences as she passionately engages with life. Her poems have figured in various anthologies and magazines like Muse India. Her first book of poetry titled ‘Of Love, Longing and Other poems’ was published in August 2023.
Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) has an MBA in Marketing and Corporate work experience of over two decades. She enjoys writing all genres of poetry, prose, short stories, and travel diaries. Brought up in a cosmopolitan environment, and educated in Convent Schools run by Irish Nuns, she has imbibed the best from Eastern and Western cultures. She has authored 4 books, namely Trail Mix, Minds Unplugged, Evocative Renderings & Tales of the Twins.
Radha Chakravarty is a widely published writer, critic and translator. Subliminal: Poems is her recent collection of poetry. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She contributed to Pandemic: A Worldwide Community Poem (Muse Pie Press, USA), nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2020.
Giuliana Ravaglia was born in the province of Bologna (Italy), is a former primary school teacher and has a great love for poetry, especially haiku. His poems have been published on websites and online magazines: Otata, Troutswirl, ESUJ-H, Asahi Haikuist Network, The Mainichi, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, Haikuuniverse, Cold Moon Journal, Akita International Haiku Network, The Bamboo Hut, Take 5ive, Haiku Corner, Memoirs of a Geisha, HaikuNetra, Haiku World, Failed Haiku among others. he received Honorable mention in Haiku EuroTop 100
Dr Nishi Chawla is an academic, a writer and a filmmaker. Nishi Chawla has published ten plays, two novels, and seven collections of poetry. She has also written and directed four award winning art house feature films. She has also co-edited two global anthologies of poetry published by Penguin Random House: 'Greening the Earth' and 'Singing in the Dark.'
Week 4, March 2025
Life's Rapidity
By Sangeeta Sharma 26th March 2025
Nothing surpasses the speed of life
Like Talaria, Hermes’ winged sandals, or an arrow, that darts at the blink of an eye
Swiftly leaving treacly-tangy instants behind and zoom fly
The rising sun in all its glory fires up the sinews with its golden eye-blinding glaze
Few hours, the sun wanes with the cool, silvery moon appearing with its pleasing rays
Or the murky clouds blocking the coruscate with their scary haze
Life never identical, provides some let-up
Now and then from the painful phase
Instead of exacerbating the vulnerable state!
Poems
by Vijay Prasad 25th March 2025
there 𝘪𝘴 a season even though 𝘪 die
always in transition a name not owned
seasons pile up around the body i carry
with excess of being she arrives in another season
Dirge
By TSC Mouli 28th February, 2025
Sadness saps energy
precious life withers
pain beyond words
slices spirit unremittingly.
Last moments creep quietly
like water under mat spread
inhaling vitality ruthlessly
march towards goal stretches.
Strength deserts deceptively
jolting rock like soul
whispers spew silent venom
tired breath seeks relief!
An Abade to March
By Avantika Singh 29th March 2025
in the crimson hush of twilight
magic stirs the embers of the first light
March dawns from winter’s chrysalis
on the whispering wind, a gentle kiss
a liminal space
between what was and what is—
filled with possibility
trembling in its vulnerability
an aubade in time
a time sublime
the hush before the awakening
the gentle hum before the roaring…
floating on the sea of consciousness
in the silver stream of existence
Poems
By Kavita Ratna 26th March 2025
summer rain
palms facing up
glitter gold
rolling stones
bubbles
ferry tales
kernel and chaff
breeze travels
light
Biographies of Poets
