Dedicating some of my old work to Shreya...

In my last post, I had mentioned about having to quote someone else until I write my own verses for Shreya. Though the second part of that sentence still stands, I thought I might want to pluck out something from my own previously written stuff. I'm posting two poems that I'd written some three years back. (This is the first time I'm posting them in an open forum; their total readership hitherto has probably been 7 or 8.) They were originally written for someone else, but I'm dedicating them to Shreya. Please excuse the incomplete conformance to the iambic pentameter; I had an insufficient knowledge of word-stress back then. (these are sonnets.) I shall make the necessary corrections soon.

Poem 1

A barren island may not know its worth
It still unknowingly rescues a boat
An orphaned newborn knows not that its birth
May turn a childless couple's antidote

A dying bankrupt might live if he sees
A blind and handless beggar laugh and roll
And famine-struck harvesters cheat decease
On watching inadvertent¹ raindrops fall

The yon unwitting² moon knows not, its gleam
Be what, the shepherd, from low valley warns
And suicidal men may fain redeem
On watching flowers bloom despite their thorns

Alike, your warbling voice protracts³ my fall
Yet! Kill me if it’s not me whom you call

¹ Inadvertent = Unintentional
² Unwitting = Unintentional
³ Protract = Postpone

(In celebration of the bird-like, mellifluous voice of …)

© Mohit Salgaonkar

February 26, 2006

Poem 2

The voice that rises from within a man
Is not the same that one hears from his mouth:
His throat first swallows all good words it can,
And lets through all that's graceless and uncouth

Ah! Next, his tongue captures this passing voice
And veers the way the words were meant to taste
And then, his palate exempts words of noise
But steals those that are melodious and chaste

Now, jagged teeth make this voice further shrill
By sharpening it into biting words
And depraved lips that open at their will
But make him sound like fitful, jarring birds

But, in your case, none such dare interfere
Thus! What your heart says rings out sweet and clear!

(The secret behind her beautiful voice!)

© Mohit Salgaonkar

May 25, 2006

BTW, I have no intentions of aberrating from the original task I had set out to do, so I'll be posting my next commentary soon.