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Daily Verse
 

Week 1, February  2025
 

Image by Beth Macdonald

Everlasting Memories

By Sreelekha Chatterjee  3rd February 2025

Memories hang like verglases

from the rock-solid ceiling of my mind.

With the warmth of my remembrance,

they melt, pouring out, come alive.

Moments turn into memories

I do not know when.

One leads to another,

clustering as though a bunch of grapes

from the soul of my existence,

belonging to a common memoir clade.

Memories frosted for life

bloom as delightful flowers—

imperishable like the fragrance

of my being without which I feel disempowered.

Refreshing as the roseate air of dawn’s

illuminating grace,

anamneses come forth,

seem to ebb and flow—

vanish and reappear.

Reminiscent of the frosted icing on the cake,

I relish them, venerate their lived experiences—

some of memorized tears, others of recollected laughter;

their beauty embraces with passionate wings.

Akin to the snow that amasses—wise and bright—

memories remain sealed,

my heart endowed with gratitude chimes.

Image by Gul Zeynep Genc
Crayon

Twilight Hours

By Geeta Varma 5th February 2025

They stay,

The early ones,

Like old photographs

On a fading wall,

    Of-

        Sweaters, red and brown

        hanging on a clothesline,

        waiting for the school bus

        in the cold,

        sister in a white petticoat

        refusing to sit

        on a cold metal chair,

        a soft white flower falling

        and I, picking up

        as we, father and I, walk

        one dark evening,

        waiting for a peacock feather

        in my notebook

        to germinate,

        grandma’s echoing voice

        in the old courtyard

        of her ancient house,

        our running in the rain,

       our new-born baby

       packed, full of wonder,

       ready to be cuddled….

 

So much, so many

Frozen in time

In the twilight hours

Of my life!   

Image by Content Pixie

Haiku

By Giuliana Ravaglia 4th February 2025

Image by Annie Spratt

fallen leaves -

all the words

I didn't say

Image by Jeremy Perkins

lockdown -

wall of silence

unveils the stars

Image by Manuel Bartsch

cicadas...

the empty shell

of my womb

Image by Sixteen Miles Out

Micro Poems

By Kavita Ratna 6th February 2025

Screenshot 2025-05-10 at 7.58.58 PM.png

pierced heart

on a window pane

dusting day

Image by Volodymyr Hryshchenko

cradled faith

a prayer awaits

the pole sta

Image by Evie S.

Why, child, do you

step into my aura,

only to vanish?

Image by Clément Rémond
Flower

Ice Cava

By Radha Chakravarty 7th February 2025

Memory is a cave

festooned

with

suspended

episodes

strung

like

icicles

bearing

unbearable

stories

frozen

in

the mind’s

time-

line

Biographies of Poets

Sreelekha Chatterjee is a poet from New Delhi, India. Her poems have appeared in Madras Courier, Setu, Raw Lit, Verse-Virtual, The Wise Owl, Pena Literary Magazine, Ghudsavar Literary Magazine, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Poetry Catalog, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Creative Flight, Medusa’s Kitchen, Everscribe Magazine, and in the anthologies—Light & Dark (Bitterleaf Books, UK), The Harvest & the Reaping, Winter Glimmerings, and Whose Spirits Touch (Orenaug Mountain Publishing, USA), and Christmas-Winter Anthology Volume 4 (Black Bough Poetry, Wales, UK).

Geeta Varma is a poet based in Chennai. She has worked as a teacher and freelance journalist for some time. She has to her credit two books of poems and is a regular contributor to a few online magazines. She lives in Neelankarai with her husband Shreekumar Varma and has two sons, Vinayak married to Yamini, and Karthik.

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.

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.  

Kavita Ratna is a children's rights activist, poet and a theatre enthusiast. Sea Glass is her anthology of poems published by Red River. Her poems have appeared in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess within, A little book of serendipity, Muse India, The Wise Owl, Triveni Hakai India, Haiku in Action, the Scarlet Dragonfly, the Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy poetry, the Haiku Dialogue, Stardust Haiku, Leaf (Journal of The Daily Haiku), and many others. She was on the Haiku panel at the Glass House Poetry Festival, Bangalore, 2024. She is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, 2024.

Week 2, February 2025
 

Image by Markus Frieauff

Live...Pause

By Vidya Hariharan 10th February 2025

a lump on my slender neck

ear nose throat ENT

specialist scribbles other

acronyms with a stylus

emanating professional

stance in a white room

with a partition behind

a high faux-leather bed

with wheels on which I

hunch, Rodin! While

the nurse calls out

the next suppliant’s no.

Image by Sincerely Media
Crayon

Haiku on Frosted memories

by Neena Singh  9th January  2025

Image by Luther.M.E. Bottrill

frosted windows

every morning star

a reminder of you

Image by Jamo Images

a snowdrift morning

we turn inward

finding ourselves

in a world

of glimmering silver

Image by Nadir sYzYgY

gone but not forgotten

ice spirals folded

into sunrise

Image by Scott Webb

Frosted Memories

By Tamali Neogi 12th February 2025

Depending on the curve of our disposition,

we remember either the saddest or the happiest,

memory of our past,

psychologists say so, but is there any rule, fixed or not?

At times the weird behaviour of memory puzzles a lot,

otherwise who is such a fool to look back,

for the burden of past mistakes and errors is enough

to sink us in the coldest ocean of compunction.

Don't know why on a sunny morning when

 angels go swimming on the glassy water of Manas lake,

alluring gateway to heaven,

when my mind, piercing it open,

out of the age old blanket of misery,

        just started enjoying the drama of

     dream happenings,

when life around seems to be the most beautiful thing,

why then the light falls on the cloudy gemstones,

childhood pain, adolescent aberration, sins of youth?

 

No. It's not as painful now as before.

Perhaps under pressure they are converted

into agate stones,

and see how it splits,

when the ray of  conscious understanding

passes through them,

the seven colours of rainbow,

bring into prominence multiple

subconscious understandings;

inviting changes of  perspectives!

Won't shun again, reflections on the past,

for depending on our disposition,

fossil like under the layers of alluvial soils

or gem like in cavities in igneous rocks,

like me, my soft hearted friends,

            or the unfeeling demons,

may too discover their frosted memories.

Image by Katlyn Boone

Cherita

By Susan Burch 13th February 2025

Image by Wonderlane

bags of mulch

stacked around

the house

 

this grief

 

still too heavy

to unload

Image by P A

like James Earl Jones

 

a deep booming voice

in my head says

 

the sparrows have chosen!

it is your tree they will nest in

through the winter

Image by Artur Matosyan

a tick burrowing

under my skin

 

a tiny insult

 

that turns out

was a bullseye

all along

Image by Andrea Braeuninger
Flower

Icicles of Yore

By Santosh Bakaya 14th February 2025

I glimpse a silver-hued expanse and watch entranced.
Snowflakes dance and prance, exhilarated.

Within my heart, a silence resounds, but is soon replaced
by faint stirrings of nostalgia. 

 

My soul is ablaze
in the warmth of those memories buried under frost. 

No longer do I feel lost as the frost melts,
pelting me with silver pebbles of juvenilia. 

 

“We need to shovel the snow.”

I hear Papa’s baritone and see Mom
standing on the patio with two mugs of kehwa. 

“First have the kehwa, then shovel it!”

The snowman peers wearing Papa’s glasses.

My kid brother hurls a ball of snow at me.
“Hey, Mister, how dare you throw things at your elder sister? “
  I yell a full-throated yell. He goes pell-mell
guffawing a guffaw, laced with frost. 

 

Ice clinks in my glass. 

Memory chunks tarry a bit- then pass.

Icicles of various sizes full of pleasant surprises. 

Is that my kid bro in boxing gloves turning blue in rage? 
The cranky fellow oft displayed his versatility in crazy pranks. 

 

I chuckle at a secret thought.

What if a resurrected Picasso adds my bro’s blue nose
to his repertoire of the Blue Period,
with an added embellishment -a red rose
stuck to the lapel of his hand –me- down black coat,
about which he was always complaining?


While travelling in the train once,
the poor fellow had been mistaken for a ticket collector,
clad in a coat two sizes bigger for his lanky figure!
Thankfully that memory chunk lies buried under frost.
But my soul is ablaze in the warmth of those frosted memories.

Biographies of Poets

Vidya Hariharan lives and works as a lecturer in a suburban college in Mumbai, India. Vidya's poems, haiku, haibun, senryu and prose narratives can be found in Setu, Contemporary Haibun Online, Pan Haiku Review, Under the Basho, Borderless, Poems India, Glomag, among others.

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.

Tamali Neogi is an upcoming poet who loves to read and write poetry in all he spare time

Santosh Bakaya is an award winning poet, novelist, biographer, TEDx Speaker, acclaimed for poetic biography, Ballad of Bapu, Dr. Santosh Bakaya’ has authored twenty- three books encompassing multiple genres. Reuel International Awardee [Poetry, 2014], Setu International Awardee for ‘stellar contribution to world literature’, 2018 [Pittsburgh, USA], WE EUNICE DE SOUZA [WE Literary Community, 2023], for ‘rich and diverse contribution to Poetry, literature and Learning’, she runs a column, Morning Meanderings [Learning and Creativity. Com]. Her recently published works are What is the Meter of the Dictionary? The Catnaman [With Dr. Sunil Sharma] & For Better or Verse [With Ramendra Kumar and Dr. Ampat Koshy].

Susan Burch began writing tanka poetry in April 2013. Then haiku, senryu, haibun, gembun, tanka prose, sedoka, sedoka prose, and cherita. When she writes, she lets the poem be what wants it to be. All the poems in this book wanted to be cherita, and were kept together on purpose, as a collection. None of them were previously published. Susan was the Vice President of The Tanka Society of America from 2017- 2024. She was also the Editor of Haiku in Action from 2023-2024. Susan resides in Hagerstown, Maryland, USA, with her amazing husband, Sexy Beast, and daughter, British Baby. She enjoys reading, doing puzzles, birding, and watching Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team.

Week 3, February 2025

Image by Danie Franco

The Last Time

By Shivshankar Menon 17th February 2025

The last time Grandmother addressed

Me was from her favourite

 

Morning seat by the window, her book

Of devotions open at one

 

Sunlit page unread. She spoke slowly,

Holding my hand, of the old

 

Family home, of ancient scandals and

Feuds, squabbles and partitions

 

While I listened, watching her faraway eyes

And marvelling at the rich flow

 

Of family lore. Only a year later did that tide

Of nonagenarian reminiscence

Take on new meaning when, coming home

I ran down to her room and

 

Found her sitting in the same old chair with

The same old book open on her lap.

 

Now too the pages remained unturned but

Her hands rested on them inert ;

 

When I approached she looked up slowly

And stared at me blankly

 

Clearly with no notion of who I was, before

Turning wordlessly away

Image by Diana Polekhina
Crayon

Haiku

by Steliana A Voicu  18th February  2025

Image by Chandler Cruttenden

amethyst sky -

we dance in the same rhythm

as snowflakes

Image by Alvis Wolff

hide and seek…

the moon through the icicles

at the house eaves

Image by Daniele Levis Pelusi

frost evening -

the raccoon sneaks away

in the back yard

Image by Nareeta Martin

Lace

By Deborah Bennett 19th February 2025

i am holding the lace 

my grandmother tatted 

a hundred years ago 

i am the keeper of 

the yellowed thread 

she carried north 

from mississippi 

running from mississippi 

 

ojibwa for "big river"

for how wide the water was 

between containment and freedom 

for how wide the world 

between horror and beauty 

 

i am touching the lace 

my grandmother touched 

thinking about what it was 

to be starved and sustained 

by knots and loops 

by curves and stitches 

by row on row of 

snow-shaped rings

that held all the pieces 

together 

Image by Joanna Kosinska

Poems

By Alison Nuorto

Image by Angèle Kamp

Aubade

As he kissed her sleeping form,

His hair fanned her face like a bouquet of feathers.

She awoke to the bitter scent of loss.

Like crushed blooms in Autumn.

Image by Amanda Marie

White Lines

Let me slip into you.

Into your spaces.

Where our lines blur and meld,

And I can no longer be mapped or traced.   

Image by ameenfahmy

Seawater

I’m a husk;

All lashed kernel and hollowed hubris.

Hewn from the withering vine.

But plunge me in seawater and I’ll shine,

like the newly presented babe; birthed from the core.

Propelled to Galilee,

my shedding will lead to salvage.

Image by Allen Rad
Flower

Bottled Love

By Ketaki Mazumdar 21st  February 2025

Autumn shivers.

I remember Indian Summers and

Grandma preparing jars of mangoe pickles,

 

raw, firm, drenched with sun,

that I helped pluck.

Mangoes bite sized, doused with home fiery ground masalas.

Shaken firmly,

Mixed with oil...

Spooned into jars...

 

Many hot noons of watching and waiting and drooling...

On hot roof tops..

Memories,

I carried across oceans,

Across seasons...

Precious stock of

Enticement.

Every bite a delight...

As falling leaves drifted across glazed windows,

As high rises, with powdered snow, stared at me,

The warmth of my grandma's love, Overwhelmed the corners of my heart.

Her hand knitted red and orange cosy scarf,

Her green and red, floating in oil... Mangoe pickle,

My sustenance.

Delighted my Autumn heart!

Biographies of Poets

Shivshankar Menon served for many years in the History faculty of St Stephen's College, Delhi. He now lives in his hometown Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and devotes himself to studies in Russian language and literature. 

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 Asahi Haikuist Network, Daily Haiga, The Wise Owl-The Daily Verse, Under the Bashō, Chrysanthemum and others. She is founder and editor of Enchanted Garden Haiku Journal-Romania.

Deborah A. Bennett is an American poet whose poetic work consists mostly of haiku and senryu. Her poems have most recently appeared in Acorn Haiku, Fresh Out Magazine and The Mamba, Journal of the Africa Haiku Network.

Santosh Bakaya is an award winning poet, novelist, biographer, TEDx Speaker, acclaimed for poetic biography, Ballad of Bapu, Dr. Santosh Bakaya’ has authored twenty- three books encompassing multiple genres. Reuel International Awardee [Poetry, 2014], Setu International Awardee for ‘stellar contribution to world literature’, 2018 [Pittsburgh, USA], WE EUNICE DE SOUZA [WE Literary Community, 2023], for ‘rich and diverse contribution to Poetry, literature and Learning’, she runs a column, Morning Meanderings [Learning and Creativity. Com]. Her recently published works are What is the Meter of the Dictionary? The Catnaman [With Dr. Sunil Sharma] & For Better or Verse [With Ramendra Kumar and Dr. Ampat Koshy].

Ketaki Mazumdar is an educationist and a poet. She is a recipient of many awards. Her poetry reflects her excitement with the beauty of nature, emotions of grief, joy, love and also gently touches on the spirituality and mysticism of life.

Week 4, February 2025

Image by Fabrice Villard

January Winter

By Sushant Thapa 24th February 2025

Wintering is an art.

When the winter sun

kisses the earth

its light parda seeks

an embrace.

Memories are trust

that seeks the warmth.

The mirror lake

freezes,

yet, I play with
the candle

of my frosted memories.

You shape up

and form a soul

that seeks my sight,

I carry your heart

and hear all the anticipations

to embrace the forgotten book

of wintry recollections.

January winter is a memory book.

The snow falls

from the apple tree,

I cherish the fireplace

and its nostalgia.

I fondly remember you

peeling layers of winter

from my heart.

Now, you are a frozen lake - 

a mirror that I carry

in my soul.

Image by Kari Shea
Crayon

Micro Poems

by Belinda Behne  25th February 2025

Image by Nathan Anderson

morning lookout

waiting for the red fox

coyote appears

Image by Cala

sticky fingers

of love

pry open my heart

Image by Look Up Look Down Photography

following the rainbow

we share

the pot of gold

Image by Austris Augusts

Snowy day Poem

By Kavita Ezekiel, 26th February, 2025

When the snow is on the ground
And the silence makes no sound
From earth to heaven all is white
From faraway the sun shines bright
All the birds seem to have flown
To a place they call their home
They will return when the snow has gone
Once more to sing their sweet sweet songs.

But wait I see a magpie hopping
From every branch the snow is dropping
Blue and white feathers against the light
I bet 'twill be a quiet night.

Some more snow fell all last night
He shoveled the sidewalk with all his might
A lone squirrel scampering on the high line
Like a tightrope walker balancing fine
No birds today, some sun, grey clouds
White trees praying with their heads bowed
Blessed to have nowhere to go
Will read and write and take things slow
But wait there's laundry and plenty of dishes
No Fairy Godmother to grant my wishes!
Don't know what tomorrow will bring
Be gone winter, come quickly Spring.

Poet's Note: I live in a part of Canada which experiences five long months of winter. Many of my poems describe the landscape and the sights and sounds of this season. Some of the poems are rhyming in nature and use humor as a means  to cope with the silence.

Image by Markus Spiske
Flower

A Risky Affair

By Edilson Ferriera 27th February 2025

Sometimes I visit the past, long ago, perilous

and suspicious a world.

The road I take has been built entirely by me,   

in very hard a way no one at least dreams of.

Rough a path and full of so many deviations,

that even I, well used to, go so timorous.  

Now, it is clear there were no other choices,

for only this way would lead me where I am.  

Where and what I must be ever since I was.

On this visit, I see friends, lovers, enemies,

grandfathers and cousins, see also myself.

Then, undoubtedly alive, they talk to me,  

ask for news and soon we are laughing, 

like old comrades who were absent for so long. 

On leaving, one or other intends to follow me,

but I go home alone.

I suspect that the past is jealous of its deeds

and hides from us how it has weaved them.  

I think we must go there so few times

we are capable of.

Biographies of Poets

Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet. He has published seven book of English Poems and his latest book is titled "Finding My Soul in Kathmandu" published by Ukiyoto Publishing. Sushant holds an MA in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He teaches English Language and Literature to University level students in Biratnagar, Nepal. He is widely published in print, online and school book.

Kavita Ezekiel is a published poet and Nonfiction writer. She is the author of three books and has been a teacher in colleges and schools in India and overseas for over four decades.

Belinda Behne 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 art, literature and theatre. She 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. Her poetry can be found in LEAF Journal, The Wise Owl, Scarlet Dragonfly, and Cold Moon Journal.

Mr. Ferreira, 81 years old, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. Has launched two Poetry Collections, entitled “Lonely Sailor” and “Joie de Vivre”; has 200 poems published in 300 different publications, in selected international Literary Journals. Has, also, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He began writing at the age of 67 after he retired from a bank. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.  

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry. Legato Without a Lisp is his latest (CLASSIX, an imprint of Hawakal, New Delhi, September 2024). His poetry has been published in over thirty-five countries and has appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet # 1 India, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. Sethi is in the top 10 of the erbacce-prize 2021. He is the recipient of the Ethos Literary Award 2022. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the National Defence Academy, Pune. He was conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.

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