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Daily Verse
 

Week 4,July  2023
 

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Child-Woman
By Snigdha Agrawal,  28th July 2023, 

Vintage Mirror

Amongst the sea of
faces, she was not
hard to find with that
thousand-watt smile
like a bright neon light
waiting at the arrival gate
holding a bouquet of roses
That smile
would have recognized
notwithstanding
elapsed time
That little wild child
once held my hand
chose to break free
grew filigreed wings
turned into a poised
confident woman
albeit still the child
peeking from within
heart burst with pride

Green Theme

Poems

By Karen Pierce Gonzales, 27th July 2023

Watercolor Butterfly 7

Paper Sea

Image by Brian Yurasits

I float on my back across tissue currents,
legs drawn in; hands wrapped around bony knees.
Beneath onion-skin sky, corrugated waves
carry me towards a forest recall:
flat brown-green kelp

reaching for sunlight through cutouts of surf.

Image by David Marcu

Where Horizons bend

Peonies

rounded smooth
we skip
seven times
like stones

 

across
the last strait
to skim
the other side.

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Haiku
By Ram Chandran, 25th July 2023

Hand Drawing
saxaphone1.jpg

unmindful 

of coins in the box,

the possessed busker's sax

Image by EVGEN SLAVIN

spring rain-

the scent of night jasmine

pervades my dream

Image by Thought Catalog

Being Feminine

By Debarati Sen, 26the July 2023

Dancing Woman

Every time I try to break the barriers
my role as a woman is being persistently questioned.
My benevolence as a female who is the epitome of benign kindness is in jeopardy.
My existence as a human being is growing in precarity
being overshadowed by my existence as a woman.
"Women aren't supposed to shout", they said
they gave me a cold stare every time I raised an eyebrow and my voice
they did not find me 'feminine' enough.
They said I did not duplicate Goddess Lakshmi in my posture and actions
I questioned why Lakshmi? I could be Kali and still bear equanimity!
They snapped at me again for trying to defy the norms.
For not paying heed to their exigencies
they said this might be my worst deluge of mistakes
not being coy enough
not nodding to their patriarchal rants.
Trying to break free from the shackles of a dismembered identity.
If being vociferous meant being less of a woman, I am better that way!
looking for something more tangible than being 'feminine'.

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Atlas in Atlas
By Jan Wiezorek

Atlas.jpg

Hold celestial
heavens on your
naked shoulders, or,


as Mercator would
have it, the globe
on your fleshy bones.


Muscle the bonds
of heaven while we
pull your curtain


of moonrise & dodge
the comets. Bookmark
the stars w/ music


of the spheres, orality,
& traces of touch—
before the surf


tickles your toes.

Biographies of Poets

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

Karen lives in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area and has recently had her second poetry chapbook, Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs, published by Kelsay Books. Her third chapbook, Down River with Li Po, is  a 2024 Black Cat Poetry Press selection.

Debarati Sen is a recipient of the ‘Poiesis Award for Excellence in Poetry -2023’, and the Sylvia Plath Women's Literary Award. A poet from Kolkata, she  writes both long verses and haiku. She has recently been declared the winner of NaPoWriMo 2023 by the Elite Book Awards. She has published two solo poetry collections and has contributed to more than 10 anthologies. Her haiku has been published in various international journals. Her latest collection of poems, Saudade, was brought out by Penprints in 2022.

Ram Chandran is a Corporate Lawyer by profession. He has been writing English poetry since his college days. Writing Japanese short form poetry since 2020, his English language haiku and other Japanese short form poetries have been widely published internationally in print and digital Journals. A collection of his Tanka poems titled 'The flight of a dragonfly' was published in April 2023 by Southern Arizona Press (SAP).

Jan Wiezorek writes and paints in southwestern Michigan. The London Magazine, Poetry Center San José, Minetta Review, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among others, have published his poems. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011).

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