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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
July 2026
Theme: Under the Gathering Sky
Thursday, 30th July 2026
Let it touch the sky
By Piya Dey
Words creep in my mind's eye;
Not like embroidery;
Intricate and fine,
Where happy flowers dance together,
And brighten up each day.
But, like a spider's web,
Hanging on a wall,
Tangled with each other,
Making a delicate wave;
Each thread unique from the other.
I let my thoughts take flight,
Soaring high
Until they reach the sky.
While I watch them go higher
From the ground below.
I let them return to me,
So I can prepare them again
To fly higher than before.
And never come back
Before they have touched the sky.
About the Author
Piya Dey is a poet, writer, and independent researcher who completed her M.A. in English from the University of North Bengal (2025) after graduating from Birpara College (2023). She lives in the Dooars and enjoys reading and interpreting literature, as well as engaging in creative and literary activities.
Wednesday, 29th July 2026
Dream
By Veerashetty, Aurad
Before dawn, the sky gathers its blue uncertainties, and somewhere within them a dream begins to breathe.
It is not a castle of gold, nor a crown of applause.
It is a small flame cupped carefully against the wind, a quiet voice saying: “Keep walking.”
The road bends. Storms arrive uninvited. Some hopes fall like leaves into forgotten seasons.
Yet the dream remains.
It waits in classrooms, in unfinished notebooks, in tired hands that refuse surrender, in hearts that choose courage over comfort.
I have watched dreams rise like kites against dark clouds, carried not by luck but by patience.
My own dream stands beneath this gathering sky— to teach, to write, to leave behind a few honest words that may help another traveler find their way home.
For every dream is a conversation between who we are and who we are becoming.
About the Author
Veerashetty Aurad is an English teacher, poet, and author from Karnataka, India. His work explores humanity, nature, education, spirituality, and social consciousness. His poems have appeared in various literary platforms, and he is the author of Harvest of Stillness and Harvest of Legends.
About the Author
Mona Bedi is a medical doctor in Delhi, India. She has been writing poetry since childhood but a few years back she started writing the Japanese form, haiku. She has authored two poetry books published by the name of 'they you and me' and 'dancing moonlight.' She received the Grand Prize in the 3rd Morioka Haiku Festival, 2021 and four haiku of merit in the World Haiku Review 2021/2022 along with an honourable mention at the Japan Fair 2021. Her haiku, tanka haibun and Haiga has been published in various journals of repute like Presence, Modern haiku, Haiku dialogue, Haiku in Action, Triveni haikuKatha, Drifting sands, Failed haiku, Stardust, Creative Inspirations, among others.
Monday, 27th July 2026
Sky Country
By Subhransu Maitra
No depressed opponent,
my unbearable, delinquent, survivor city
never disappoints me
in framing, enacting city-sky symmetry.
Whenever I walk the fabled, fierce, bitter,
architect, narrator streets,
north south east or west,
under a galaxy of kindred, custodian, performing,
grieving, ungrieving, narrating, implacable,
architect skies,
streets and skies nod, each reading the other.
The ancient hubris of blue tutors the readers.
And my unbearable, fond, narratee city
holds me in her eyes,
her breath quickening in an ecstasy
of umbilical joy
as if I were a child taking toddling steps
on her sentient streets,
and gives me each time a new birth
to nest in decrepit eyes and ears
and a new legatee, redeeming sky.
About the Author
Subhransu Maitra is a familiar figure as a translator of Bengali classic fiction and verse into English. He is also a poet who has published two books of verse, namely, When My Mother Sang and The Dark Harvest.
Friday, 24th June 2026
I glide gently
a step away from morning
a wandering languor
on the shore of a smile
water in my hands
rushing over my skin
I breathe elsewhere
a meadow of caresses
They were alone beyond the threshold
my dreams in the attic
scrolls of amber
sunk wind and breath
dawn in the wind
that never forgets and ceaselessly
loves everything
I remember the wind, invasive and precious.
I watched it sweep across the threshold,
its gaze full of secrets and hopes,
an incessant call that lingered at the entrance,
like an impalpable and delicate embrace.
It was almost Christmas,
but spring was already making its way.
About the Author
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
Thursday 23rd July 2026
Weather Report for Future Ancestors
By Sabyasachi Roy
The sky kept refreshing—a tab refusing closure.
Street-level, boys carried bouquets through the bad news,
their stems bright as loopholes.
A storm crouched over the asphalt, all elbows and unfinished litigation.
Turning a corner, I startled the local syntax:
same face, newer fault line.
Meanwhile, a room somewhere was naming a child
after a season that hasn't cleared customs.
Funny how the front looked armed,
yet delivered only the petrichor
of a second chance.
But then, that was a borderline forecast:
Under a sky gathering receipts, we danced like liability that went bad.
Lipstick, plasma, warm tallboys—the civic decorum.
He crossed three checkpoints, and couldn’t outrun the nickname.
She couriered her lungs across the province; the parcel returned as humidity.
By midnight the clouds held court: all rise, all thunder, no bench.
We laughed—coarse, ill-timed—while the horizon stitched its own throat.
Morning arrived in stormlight.
The ledger, still open.
About the Author
Sabyasachi Roy is the author of Writing While the World Burns and Micro Craft for Sentences that Sing, e-books on the craft of writing published by Authors Publish. His poems have appeared in Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Singapore Unbound, The Wise Owl, and others. His fiction has been published in Viridine Literary, Inglenook Lit, After the Storm, among several journals. He writes craft essays regularly for Authors Publish.
About the Author
Steliana Cristina Voicu lives in Ploieşti, Romania and loves painting, poetry, Japanese culture, photography and astronomy. Her haiku, tanka, haiga, poetry, short-prose have been published worldwide, including The Wise Owl-The Daily Verse, Spillwords, Asahi Haikuist Network, The Mainichi, Under the Bashō, cattails, Chrysanthemum and others. She is founder and editor of Enchanted Garden Haiku Journal-Romania.
Tuesday, 21st July 2026
Echoes beneath the Horizon
By Parminder Singh 'Aziz'
The clouds heavy with history press down upon the hills,
a quiet canvas of charcoal and gold.
The world outside hurries,
folding umbrellas, checking watches,
panicking at the coming rain.
But we do not move.
We sit in the open field,
your hand a warm anchor in mine.
Let the sky swell with memory and desire.
Above us, unanswered questions circle like birds,
yet we have stopped asking.
I trace the curve of your jaw,
the wind weaving possibilities through your hair.
You smile, a quiet rebellion against the storm,
and thunder dissolves into your steady breathing.
The universe narrows to the space between us.
Let the horizon collapse.
We are safely lost
in the world we built from a single glance.
About the Author
Dr. Parminder Singh is an IT Professional-turned-educator, and has overall experience of over two decades in the fields of software development, project management, digitization and teaching. He currently works as Assistant Professor of English at Dev Samaj College for Women, Chandigarh. He specializes in Cultural Studies and Digital Humanities. He is a multilingual poet, translator, short-story writer, and has national and international publications. He has been a key contributor in setting up Panjab Digital Library. He has received Jathedar G. S. Tohra Award for his Punjabi translation of P. S. Sachdeva’s Appreciating Sikhism and has co-translated Sudeep Sen’s poetry into Punjabi titled Gau-Dhoorh Vela.
Monday, 20th July 2026
Unheard Surges
By Ranjana Sharan Sinha
A long sleepless night
under a gathering sky!
Looking out the window,
I brood over my lost self:
The withered trees
with snake- like branches
have morphed into a timeless truth ---
Hollowed out, disconnected from life!
The full moon of yesteryear
limps along the memory lane!
The inexorable march of time continues,
leaving behind an erosion of years!
Sad about my fleeting
'moments' of glad grace',
I ponder with a heavy heart--
Oh, who can escape
the biological reality?
About the Author
A recipient of 15 national and international awards for her contribution to poetry, Dr. Ranjana Sharan Sinha is a poet, author, academic and retd. professor of English. She is a well-known voice in Indian Poetry in English with international recognition. She received a commendation from the former President of India, A.P.J Abdul Kalam for her poem 'Mother Nature' in 2005. Her poems ' The Silent Shore' and 'She's Gone Forever' are part of postgraduate University Syllabus, Purnea University while the poem ' Poppies: Red, Black and White' is included in the syllabus of B.A (Major), RTM Nagpur University. Her poems, short stories, articles and research papers have been widely published in India and abroad and have been translated into a number of foreign languages. Authored and published 10 books in different genres and 50 research papers. One of the members of Editorial Board, Our Poetry Archive (OPA). She is a bilingual author and writes in Hindi, too.
Friday, 17th July, 2026
a coconut tree
shades over Cauvery
frond drawn waves
bangle shards
smelted into glass chains
girl memories
faces sway
with the candle flame
power-cut
About the Author
Kavita Ratna is a children's rights activist, poet and a theatre enthusiast. 'Sea Glass' and 'Every peck a rainbow' are her two poetry collections, both published by Red River. Her poems have appeared in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess within, Presence, Asahi Shimbun, Under the Basho, Muse India, The Wise Owl, haikuKATHA, Haiku in Action, the Mamba -Journal of Africa Haiku Network, Black and white haiga, the Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy poetry, the Haiku Dialogue, Stardust Haiku, LEAF (Journal of The Daily Haiku), and several others. She was on the Haiku panel at the Glass House Poetry Festival, Bangalore, 2024 and the Mysore Literature Festival, 2024. She is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, 2023 and a Touchstone Award nominee, 2024.
Thursday, 16th July 2026
Jilted
By Asmita Patwardhan
Remember the day
The Sky was a bride?
So elegantly she wore
Her voluminous white.
Her "something blue"
Was her very own hue.
And her something "new"
Were pearly strands of dew.
Her something "borrowed"
Came from the heavenly abode,
A crescent moon pendant
that she so lovingly adored.
Her something "old"
were the twinkling stars
that adorned her tresses
like dainty, silver flowers.
She waited patiently for the Sun,
As the hours went by...
He jilted her that day
And she still doesn't know why!
So now you know why...
Sometimes the sky seems
heavy with an odd kind of gloom
Usually happens
on sunless afternoons....
About the Author
Asmita Patwardhan is an architect and educator passionate about reseach in Architecture. In February 2023 her solo poetry collection titled "Hell's Flowers", was released at the World Book Fair 2023, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. She feels writing is an art that has a cathartic quality that helps heal the soul. Hell's Flowers is a poetry book that is centred around the theme of mental health issues. She received the jury award for her poem, titled " Phantom Roots" at the national level, Tatalitlive Festival held in Mumbai in 2019. She received the second prize for a short story contest, conducted by ISOLA, Mumbai chapter for her story titled, "Gangu's Grove".
Tuesday, 14th July 2026
All that We need
By Abha Das Sarma
We sat
in complete silence,
contemplating
where we had gone wrong—
so wrong
as to warrant a silence
total, and so different.
From when we stood
under the open sky,
lit only by the moon
and the solitary lamppost.
My palms spread onto yours,
fingers mapping our future,
minds dreaming miles away.
The sky was beginning to be streaked,
pink peeping through grey and white,
drifting and diffusing like our minds
in the fading warmth of the cupped tea,
silent and lone over the widening horizon.
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, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, 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.
Monday, 13th July 2026
Full Circle
By Meenakshi Mohan
Do not go gentle into that good night…but remember the wild sun of your youth, for the circle must close where it first opened.
~Dylan Thomas
tip, tap, tap, tap, a heavy downpour
each drop dancing on the dull gray sidewalk
a group of five to six-year-olds laughing,
mouths open to catch the drops,
jumping right into the soft puddles,
sprayed with mud—a pure delight—he was one of them,
splashing with others, a moment of wonder!
the sky was misty, a soft drizzle, the Ganges hummed
a soft, rippling melody as gentle raindrops danced
upon the surface, in the gazebo—a lifetime of promise—
the priest chanting shlokas before the havankund
while he put sindoor in the parting of her hair—
a blessing all around, a life of dreams!
years passed—it was pouring torrentially, piercing
the hearts of the mountains, seraph-like clouds
watching with misty eyes the chanting of the priest,
the serenade of the Ganges as we submerged
his ashes in the holy water, heaven and the nature wept
as the ocean and the sky gathered him in their embrace—
a life in full circle!
About the Author
Dr. Meenakshi Mohan (USA) is an internationally published writer, scholar, art critic, children's writer, painter, and poet. She is on the editorial Committee for Inquiry in Education, a peer-reviewed journal published by National Louis University, Chicago, Illinois. She is an Advisory Editor for Confluence, UK. Meenakshi received the Setu and Panorama International Awards for Excellence in Literature. Her book, Symphonies of Life, won the Sudesh Kamra Memorial Award for the best debut poetry book at the Bhasha and Beyond Literary Festival, Pune. Meenakshi lives in the USA.
Friday, 10th July 2026
Clouds Within Clouds Without
By Alka Kansra
The sky thickens with restless clouds
Heavy, ink-dark, swollen with rain
Any moment, any minute
It will pour, drenching everything
Homes absorb the heavy downpour
Ceilings and walls turn damp and quiet
Soft with a silence that smells of monsoon
Inside the heart, clouds gather and churn
Thoughts press and spin like a storm
Finally, the daughter breaks down
A string of tears, unheld, unpinned, flows
Father is like the roof above
Mother, the earth that bears it all
Brother turns into a wall, absorbing
The rain that falls from a daughter’s eyes
How many monsoons lie hidden
In chests that never speak their pain
Consoling and hugging their daughters
Loaded with gifts, they send them back again
Families walk through droughts with wet eyes
Carrying whole seasons of rain within
Carrying clouds too deep to weep.
About the Author
Alka Kansra is a retired educationist and a prolific poet with several poetry collections to her credit
Wednesday, 8th July 2026
Local Lore
By Neera Kashyap
In our hill cottage, storms at night made me afraid. I would move down to the lower bedroom to avoid the harsh sounds of rain and wind beating down on our tin roof, with just thin pine planks on the underside. Our cottage was at the foot of a slope that rose to a scattered pine cover, several trees shorn of lower branches for firewood. In the bedroom below, the storm sounded less angry, but through the glass front, I couldn't take my eyes off the fluorescent lightning that forked the dark sky like a snake's tongue. My Pahari caretaker laughed at my fear, casually informing me that even if a pine fell on the cottage, it would not seriously harm it.
One tempestuous night I heard something crash heavily above. I had fearful thoughts of a tree crashing through the roof to land on my bed, branches dripping wet. In the morning, we saw that a lopped tree had indeed landed on the tin roof. Two wooden planks had fallen and one glass window broken. My caretaker and his friends roped the tree away as if it was a matchstick.
green peaches
scattered on wet grass
bruised but sweet
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 in July 2025.
Tuesday, 7th July 2026
Dusking
By Geetha Nair
It is dusking now...
Strands of red net the west.
Within, bleak clouds gaze out
In mute unrest.
I too am dusking.
Before all is black
Shall I set my things in order?
Apologies,thankfulness...
Yet exultation reigns
There is nothing out there, I know,
Nothing but space, oblivion.
And so it was good to live,
To relish what was given,
To love, be loved
To watch faces shine
And voices tinkle like a stream
Steadily flowing down the years,
A mudbank here, a stone there,
But none stagnating
the living flow.
Dusking...
And now the red is weak
The clouds flee,
I await the final setting.
About the Author
Geetha Nair loves reading & writing poetry
Monday, 6th July 2026
Watcher of the Skies
By Salvatore Difalco
When I follow the trajectory
of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon
I am struck by its speed as it spans
the sky in seconds, passing
behind the crescent moon.
What does this—in the big picture—mean?
It could be space debris, or some species
of satellite save for its abrupt
return and sudden pause
in the middle of the sky.
Motionless for a moment,
it then zips off, zigzagging back
to its starting point, as if it knows
I am watching and wants to give me a show.
And maybe it would comfort me to know
that as I am watching it
it is watching me and perhaps is as
curious or puzzled by my existence
as I am of it. But chances are I am
a microbe on its scanners,
a tiny fragile life form with limited
mobility and almost no lifespan.
That is why I perform ten jumping jacks
and run on the spot for a minute.
That is why I sing a few bars
of my favourite Genesis song.
Will you survive the ocean of being?
If it is watching I’ll also give it a show.
About the Author
Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. Recent work appears in Cafe Irreal, The Lake, and The Journal of Compressed Arts.
Friday, 3rd July 2026
Under a Gathering Sky
By Rashmi Mohapatra
Under a gathering sky,
people carry their silences like umbrellas.
The clouds are the pride of forgotten letters;
the wind, their unread sentences.
Heart is a half-open window
where memories perch like sparrows.
Time spills its ink
across the notebook of blue.
Our waiting
is as deep as hidden roots.
Our laughter
is the last breath of light before rain.
No one ever reaches another completely,
even the sky
only pretends to touch the horizon.
Yet every cloud
finds room in one sky.
People
raise fences of thorns inside their own chests,
until the sky gathers as one,
while hearts die embracing their private lightning.
About the Author
An ex-banker, Rashmi is a bilingual poet who writes in Odia and English. Her work has appeared in various magazines and journals. She has published five anthologies of Odia poems and one in English.
Thursday, 2nd July 2026
The Language of Clouds
By Anukriti Ashok
Tender, fluffy clouds gather,
like dreams woven on silk pillows.
They melt in my hands like lather,
evoking warm, campfire marshmallows.
When distant hopes take flight,
they extend warmth like companions.
When weary wings are troubled by sunlight,
they provide shade like wisdom-laden banyans.
Sometimes, they wear forgotten shades,
like wrinkles on an old, discarded sweater.
Grey emotions burst, their anger fades,
like tear-soaked words on a love letter.
Monsoon arrives, they hide the moon like a mystery,
Carrying unspoken desires and an untold history.
About the Author
Anukriti Ashok is an Assistant Professor of English at Satyawati (Evening) College and a research scholar at the University of Delhi. An avid poetry enthusiast, her work has been featured in various poetry anthologies, literary journals, and e-magazines. She is the author of the award-winning poetry collection When the Hummingbird Sings, which earned her the 21st Century Emily Dickinson Award, The Golden Book Award, and the International Author's Excellence Award.
Wednesday, 1st July 2026
Wonder
By Tamoghna Mukherjee
“Nothing astonishes us anymore.”
Under a sky sequined with dead and stillborn stars,
you, lying amidst the blades of grass, were mumbling
this line last night like an arcane sylvan incantation.
Since then, I’ve been noticing how
a departure is just a departure, how no arrival
emanates the warmth of familiarity,
how every morning is like a bleak shadow of
a beast forcibly tamed, how every night is
a mere stone whose lustre is gone for good.
Say, who still wants to be astonished here?
Who, in this indifferent city, still awaits a moment
of epiphany and dreams of getting awestruck
by the blooming of a thousand Queens of the Night?
Is it you? Is it me? Is it you? Is it us? See how
the sky still glides past the weary corpses of crepuscules
in anticipation of the cooing of newborn stars.
And the incantation that you reiterated last night
is what still has a kernel of wonder nestled inside its womb.
About the Author
Tamoghna Mukherjee is a poet, translator, essayist, and PhD researcher who writes in both Bengali and English. His work has appeared in journals and magazines including Muse India, Poetry India, Verseville, Anandabazar, and Desh. He regularly participates in poetry readings and literary events across India and tries to engage with memory, history, landscape, and the complexities of contemporary experiences through literary and academic writings. He is the author of three poetry collections and has translated the works of several Bengali poets into English.