Daily Verse
Week 1, October 2025
Thresholds
By Vandana Garg, 6th October 2025
I never understood
A quiet, subtle, shifting ground
Where my joys become sorrows
Where my hopes are fragile
Where my fears are loud
Where my patience ends
And words freeze,
Where the darkness just began
I lost the sense of being me
A boundary appears
With coldest slogans of “yours” & “mine”
I have condemned since beginning
The lines drawn and crossed
On the edge of the dear world
Where my mind is wild and free
I prefer to stand still on the Thresholds!
The Quiet Before
by Bhavana Rathore, 7th October 2025
Beneath
hush of thoughts,
silence of an eclipsed mind paces-
Like those medieval paintings
serene, still, lost in time.
A moment
never to be retrieved,
endless-
this spiral, wherever I go.
By the brooks,
by the creeks,
unrest lingers in the calm
almost fading the bright of sun-
The sky cloaked in grey,
as if holding the storm
yet to begin.
In between
By Concetta Pipia, 8th October 2025
We linger in the space
where yesterday dissolves
and tomorrow is not yet.
A breath hangs between endings,
a foot poised above the unknown.
Nothing is settled, nothing certain,
and still the heart leans forward,
hungry for the shift,
thirsting for the moment
that folds one self into another.
The Metaphysical portal
By Nivedita K, 10th October 2025
In the mysterious realm beyond human perception,
a threshold exists
an invisible veil.
Here, thoughts dissolve into eternity
and the soul sights its own reflection in the nothingness.
When we step across, not with our feet but our consciousness,
we leave behind the confines of form
and enter a space where time bends
and the true essence of being exists.
Here, the boundary is no boundary at all.
There is only a gateway to limitless understanding,
a fleeting breath between the finite and the infinite.
Poet's Note: I have taken threshold to mean that elusive threshold that no living being knows about but one that we all must cross at some point in our life. A crossing of the threshold to Nothingness? Infinity? Rebirth? Heaven? Hell? The answers remain ever elusive, and it is this elusiveness I have tried to capture by showing how it is our soul that crosses over this threshold and sees nothingness and infinity and the finite.
Biographies of Poets
Vandana Garg is a Chandigarh-based poet who loves to read and write poetry
Bhawana Rathore is a student and a haiku enthusiast, deeply interested in literature and human sciences. She dedicates her poetry to her late grandparents. Her work has been published in some of the haiku anthologies and online haiku journals, including tsuri-dōrō, BONES, Cattails, Prune Juice, Failed Haiku, Femku, Chrysanthemum, Under the Basho etc. She finds happiness in simplicity of life. She writes here- https://aswordsfly.com/
Concetta Pipia, born and raised in New York City, writes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and prose that linger in the spaces between memory and imagination, capturing the quiet pulse of human experience. Her work has appeared in international anthologies and literary magazines, including "The Raven’s Perch," (2023), "The Wise Owl," (2023), "The Wise Owl’s Daily Verses," (2024, 2025), "The Suffolk County Poetry Review," (2024, 2025), "Summer Sashays" (2025), and the online daily newspaper "Different Truths" (2024, 2025). She co-edited the anthology "Seasons of Change: Reflecting Today, Dreaming Tomorrow," (2024). A graduate of Parsons, Touro University School of Law, and the University of Phoenix, she is also a certified well-life coach, blending insight and artistry in her writing and practice.
Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford and a professional Bharatanatyam dancer. Her work has been published in various online and print poetry magazines and anthologies, both nationally and internationally. She has three poetry books to her credit – She: The Reality of Womanhood, The Many Moods of Water, and Pa(i)red Poetry. Her profile showcasing her use of poetry to address pertinent issues was featured in Lifestyle Magazine
Vijay Prasad is a poet from Patna, India. He is disappointingly interested in life. He has a passion for haiku, language, philosophy, and so on ... He is published in Bones, Under the Basho, tinywords, Failed Haiku, The Mumba Journal, Haiku Dialogue, Prune Juice, among others.
Week 2, September 2025
September Morning
By Belinda Behne, 8th September 2025
Monarchs float
over the goldenrod patch
Children’s laughter
floats like honey
in the late summer sun
muffled by the thick warm air
School is starting
The earth is turning
Memories catch me
My thoughts float
back to my own Midwest
childhood-
the sadness of saying goodbye
to summer
the excitement of new shoes
books and pencils for school
a new dress
sewn by Grandmother
Leaving the chaos of home
meeting a new teacher
maybe new friends…
The golden embrace
of September’s sun
and her clear blue skies
float into my window this morning
Wrapped in her velvet caress
I gather my notebooks
and lesson plans
hoping to share her richness
as new young minds float by
A September Twilight
By Meena Chopra, 9th September 2025
September, draped in summer's fading memory,
spills soft amber along the horizon,
receding through layers of silent evening—
a gentle herald to autumn.
The sun, in its velvet-shadowed glow,
lowers its gaze;
slipping between branches,
dripping through trees,
sieved by whispering leaves that sigh,
casting liquid patterns on the earth,thoughtful rays drift over fields,
caressing my skin with lingering warmth.
Silhouettes shrink, crawl—
reshaping the days
between seasons,
through thinning light,
half-lit, half-lost in a glow,
in the scent of September's twilight
September's Velvet
By Snigdha Agrawal, 10th September 2025
September lays its gold,
soft upon my skin
not to scorch,
but to bless.
Shadows lean longer,
Yet the light pools deep.
Bright enough
to guide my steps forward,
where even twilight
can be dressed in dawn.
The sun drapes itself in velvet
By Nivedita K., 11th September 2025
From an eggplant purple cloak
as the day slides into dusk on a sigh
to the deep crimson folds at dawn
The sun drapes itself in vivid velvets.
That soft crimson tapestry that unfurls at dawn
is a lullaby spun from skeins of amber and rose.
Its warmth, like promises whispered against the skin,
gently hush the world into awakening.
No harsh edges here, just a light caress
This molten hue drapes the sky in quiet grace
inviting the dawn to linger just a bit longer
inviting us to breathe long and slow and deep.
Poet's Note: I try to capture the molten deep crimson sky at dawn that drapes the sun before it gives way softly to the golden seams at midday and then transitions to the purple cloak of dusk and night. All the while, the constant is the sun, which transforms itself depending on the velvet dress encapsulating it at that point in time. I have specifically focused here on the drapes of dawn and tried to juxtapose the vivid red of dawn with the quietness of grace and slowing down.
An Ode to September
By Ritu Kamra Kumar, 12th Sep 2025
Between summer’s scorch and winter's whisper,
September slips in, clothed in velvet light.
Auxo, arbiter of seasons, ambles through orchard avenues,
turning tendrils of green to gilded grain and grape.
The sun, once sovereign, softens to a mellow minstrel,
strumming saffron strings over ripening fields.
Shadows stretch like sleepy cats across courtyard cobbles,
winds weave wistful whispers through wheat and wane.
Leaves rehearse their rust-red requiem,
each sheet of colour a fragile farewell.
Here, Keats’ quill hovers in To Autumn’s mellow hush,
Wordsworth’s gaze glows in September, 1819’s tender light.
Clouds drift like drowsy galleons across opal skies,
casting cool kisses on the earth’s expectant brow.
Birdsong thins to a thread of thought,
as evenings dress in dusky damask.
September stands as a bridge between bloom and bare,
between laughter’s light and longing’s lull.
In this hush, lies the promise
that even endings glimmer with grace.
Poet's Footnote : Auxo: One of the Horae, goddesses of the seasons; here imagined as guiding the shift from summer’s abundance to autumn’s ripeness.
Biographies of Poets
Belinda grew up in the midwest, but she has spent most of her adult life in the vibrant culture of New York City. Her first career, as a teacher of special education, led her to the love of communication. She studied art, literature and theatre and has pursued her passions of acting, writing poetry and performing professional voice-overs for more than three decades. She currently enjoys living on the edge of a salt marsh, where life continues to inspire her in new ways.
Meena Chopra is a Canada-based visual artist and poet. She has been practicing her visual art and poetry for more than three decades. She has exhibited her art across the world and has had 85 solo exhibitions. A painter, sculptor, designer, producer and curator, Meena has been a recipient of many awards. Her work has been recognized and critiqued by meadia, both in Canada and India.
Snigdha Agrawal (née Banerjee), a septuagenarian writer based in Bangalore, India, was raised in a cosmopolitan environment that offered her a rich blend of Eastern and Western cultural influences. Educated in Loreto institutions under the guidance of Irish nuns, she developed a deep appreciation for literature and the written word from an early age. A versatile writer, Snigdha explores a wide range of genres, including poetry, prose, short stories, and travelogues. She is the author of five published books. Her most recent work, Fragments of Time, is a collection of memoirs presented in a lucid, accessible style and is available worldwide on Amazon in all formats
Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford and a professional Bharatanatyam dancer. Her work has been published in various online and print poetry magazines and anthologies, both nationally and internationally. She has three poetry books to her credit – She: The Reality of Womanhood, The Many Moods of Water, and Pa(i)red Poetry. Her profile showcasing her use of poetry to address pertinent issues was featured in Lifestyle Magazine (March 2025 issue).
Dr. Ritu Kamra Kumar, Retd. Officiating Principal and Associate Professor of English at MLN College, Yamuna Nagar, 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 books.
Week 3, September 2025
The gown of the ninth moon
By Urmi Chakravarti 15th Sep 2025
When summer’s crown slips low upon her hair,
She trades her gold for robes more rare.
A queen grown wise, she folds her fire away,
September walks the sky in dusk’s embroidered sway.
The mountains bow; the rivers curve to hear
Her velvet voice that hails the fading year.
Each beam a blessing - heavy, slow, and deep,
A dream she grants the fields before they sleep.
She trails the scent of orchards in her hem,
And pearls of dew adorn her diadem.
The wind serenades her, robed in rust and flame,
And calls each leaf by its forgotten name.
Velvet hides the shadow in her seam
A silver thread that pulls apart the dream.
For every reign should fall, each day must die;
She smiles through tears, and rests her crown on the sky.
Poems
By Sarah Calvello, 16th Sep 2025
Missed
Watercolor vibrance
A caress of cashmere sun
Peach coral sunsets
In the crisp heart of autumnEvery sound seems soothing
Reminiscent thoughts wondering
Trailing withe flurry of leaves
The past is not always missed
Free Falling
Colors never seen
Unwinding ribboned hues
A bright Monet kind of love
When the sun wears velvet
And the air is hazy
A state of imaginary graceSlow see-saw of leaves
Everything seems suspended
In free falling
Amid the kaleidoscope of autumn
Turning over lazily
Days surrendering to the cold
A Velvet Celebration
By Santosh Bakhaya, 18th Sep 2026
On feeling something on my back,
I whirled back; ah ! It was the past
putting a hand on my shoulder .
Growing bolder , it took me in an embrace .
I felt so warm and cocooned , almost wanting to croon that good ole song that my mother sang .
I saw mom clad in an embroidered velvet shawl .
Pure pashmina, a tender warmth .
She smiled . Soft , gentle and loving .
Then , I saw the sun; it looked a tad different.
Had the past trooped into the present ?
What a present packed in velvet !
Had my mother resurfaced as the velvet sun?
Its tender splendour caressed me.
I glimpsed a smile on my mother‘s face !
She tightened the velvet shawl around her frail frame and disappeared, leaving a trail
of love behind. Something stirred inside me .
A new song . A soft , muted beauty .
I heard Mary Oliver whispering
“Is it red bird
or something inside me singing ?”
The sun was wearing velvet , mimicking my mother. Plagiarism or emulation?
No , a celebration .
A resurrection of my mother’ s touch !
Poems
By Joanna Ashwell, 17th September 2026
starlings
the small space
for myself at dusk
scented candle
the warm tone
measuring sunset
night rain
when the world
softens her hum
Sunlight
By Latika Singha 19th September, 2025
sunlight dappling
through
the frolicking
leaves,
a hush in
the afternoon,
almost like
moss
on a damp
branch..
dulcet rays,
ushering in,
as it were..
cooler climes,
lengthening
shadows,
and the mellow
suggestion,
of a gentler
sun,
enveloping
the earth,
in a soft,
warm
embrace
Biographies of Poets
Urmi Chakravorty is a former educator and presently, a freelance writer whose articles, short stories and poems have found space in The Hindu, The Times of India, and more than twenty national and international literary journals and anthologies. Reviewing and editing are other areas she dabbles in. Urmi has won national awards for her poetry and for writing on LGBTQIA issues. She believes in the therapeutic power of words and her pieces enclose a slice of her soul. Her other interests include music, travel, and spending time with community dogs.
Sarah Mahina Calvello loves reading and writing haiku and other forms of Japanese poetry
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.
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 and two further Cherita collections are available on Amazon, Moonset Song (2024) and Love’s Scriptures (2025). She currently serves on the selection team for the Canadian Tanka Journal GUSTS.
Latika Singha, ever enchanted by the written and spoken ' word ', lives in jaipur, with her green friends, friends with paws and some spirited fellow humans. She is also besotted by expression in hindustani.. and absorbs herself, reading and writing in this lovely language too..
Week 4, September 2025
When the sun wears velvet
By Vandana Garg, 22nd September 2025
A fiery artist came into view
afloat on horizons, draped in golden haze.
A final flaming muse for the day’s last lounge
softly reciting over the purple hills.
The shadows stretch, yawn and narrate,
aphonic crimson stories, dancing on the window panes.
The world soaked into ancient red wine
a subtle warmth gently embraced me.
Shadows finally turned grey ashes,
day slipped into immense darkness,
whispered goodbyes to me.
Like a tired emperor, he wears purple velvet,
no more gold and blinding glints, only crimson
deep like a dark forest and its shadows lengthen to the ash greys,
The darkness pulls down its curtains,
the stars shimmer
the purplish velvet finds its way to the half-lived, waking Dream.
Poems
by Guliana Ravaglia, 25th September 2025
twilight -
the golden silence
of sunflowers
september weaves
orange origami -
silent abandonment
last journey -
the velvety light
of cyclamens
Poems
By Vijay Prasad, 26th September 2025
alone with Sun's angle lower in the sky
the day folds in half under a dim weight
a ray spins and slides down her 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 consent
September 𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘬𝘴 inside her rustling body
The Purple Velvet of Helios
By Debaleena Mukherjee 28 September 2025
The grey sky is a burnished shield of a pewter dawn
A tentative sun and quicksilver rain on an autumn morn.
Summer was the kiln of coarse ashes and warm ripening
The brassy heat glaze sweetened fruits that cupped the sun.
What is the colour of this enigmatic season’s sun?
Rain drenched sunlight that has a sensuous fragrance,
The sun is a saffron orb :once luscious, and once lucent,
The season has infused into the sun a honeyed translucence.
Perhaps in this time of the year the magi of old wise ways,
Create the sun with copper, and gold with the alchemy of days.
There is sunlight that is poured into the glazier’s furnace,
And the sublime amber Helios throbs with a passionate haze.
Somewhere Helios reins his horses in the autumn of the earth,
The sun god seeks to soothe his fevered brow with winter’s first touch.
The sun has slowed in this golden autumn’s dewy season,
The caress of coolness transforms the fiery rays to soft feelings.
The sun is the knight of the tender rain misted sky that is pallid hued,
Emblazoned with heraldic ochre, the sun is the warrior and lover too.
The sun and the sky are cocooned in the secrets of an autumn night.
When sun wears velvet– the “Helios purple robe”like the sky’s sleep-smudged eyes.
Poems
By Laila B. 24th September 2025
Creaking Window
Girl in a hijab
paints water lilies
in freezing rain,
as fresh water
washes the traces
of her past.
Fresh Start
I let the fireflies
enter through the open gate
as I taste his sandalwood skin
on the picnic rug
we bought years ago.
Inheritance
The tar on the childhood road
is still fresh,
even as the incense
of adulthood fades.
Biographies of Poets
Vandana Garg is a Chandigarh-based poet who loves to read and write poetr
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.
Vijay Prasad is a poet from Patna, India. He is disappointingly interested in life. He has a passion for haiku, language, philosophy, and so on ... He is published in Bones, Under the Basho, tinywords, Failed Haiku, The Mumba Journal, Haiku Dialogue, Prune Juice, among others.
Debaleena Mukherjee, an ardent lover of poetry, pens lyrical musings whenever time offers her a fleeting pause.
Laila Brahmbhatt, is a writer with roots in Kashmir. Her ancestors came from that beautiful region of India and eventually settled in Bengal and Bihar, where she spent her early years. For the past 14 years, she has worked as a Senior Consultant in New York. Laila'a haiku have been published in various international magazines, including Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Shadow Pond Journal, Fresh Out Magazine, and Under the Basho. Her haibun has appeared in Failed Haiku. Additionally, her poems have been published in newspapers such as Kashmir Pen, The Madras Courier, and NII Journal.
Last Week, September 2025
When the sun wears velvet
by Rupa Anand 29th September 2025
the things we cannot polish September stars
something beyond
human understanding
September sky
when the sun wears velvet paws over mine
soft sunshine . . .
the leaves shiny
and glistening
