Poetry on Aneesh Sathe

The Keel

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 06:23:02 +0000

Tonight we cast our nets 
In foreign waters 
Now we are new 
Tomorrow we’ll belong 
Then the sea'll tug and pull 
Time to be gone 
 
So, let’s 
Kiss the nymphs 
Meet the crabs 
In their bucket games 
Feel their stabs 
 
Our plans are small 
But they are spread 
A thousand ports 
Before we are dead

Image: Sailing off Gloucester (ca.1880) by Winslow Homer.

Life-Compass / Why We Write Poetry

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 04:14:49 +0000

write 
to distill 
life’s brine 
into Morse code. 
 
we dot 
the night – 
constellations 
to navigate by

Dissolving the Sun

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 23:02:25 +0000

Desert guitars breathe dusk’s low tone, dissolving the sun; 
Footsteps of light retreat alone, dissolving the sun. 
 
Victories fade like prayers on wind-worn stone, dissolving the sun; 
Sorrows sleep deep in caverns unknown, dissolving the sun. 
 
Love gilds the cactus—an amber throne, dissolving the sun; 
Hatred grinds silence to marrow and bone, dissolving the sun. 
 
Hope drifts north with oud smoke blown, dissolving the sun; 
Despair sits south, unmoved and prone, dissolving the sun. 
 
Time loosens strings on an old dial-tone, dissolving the sun; 
Night tunes the dust to a heart on loan, dissolving the sun. 
 
G, your whisper returns full-grown—melded as one, dissolving the sun; 
All journeys end where they’d begun, forever dissolving the sun.

The above is (approximately) in the ghazal form. I’ve been reading history of the al-Andalus, listening to Darrymple’s podcast, and reflecting it all back to India’s recent history while reading Shadows at Noon.

Variations on a grocery run

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 16:30:23 +0000

I. 
Unruly, unmoored 
A tempest of questions 
In the car seat swrils 
 
 
II. 
The car seat is full 
Of a tidal wave 
Of question marks 
 
 
III. 
A flood of questions 
Pool in the car seat 
Doubting the universe 
 
 
IV. 
Between the tides of questions 
The car seat is both 
Raft and the sea 
 
 
V. 
Asleep 
The cauldron of the car seat 
Brews 
Questions

Thank you, Olivia Dean — Dive

Orcas in the Afternoon

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 17:09:54 +0000

We've been around since dawn 
And our day is yet long 
We were lucky 
To have Orcas 
In the afternoon

Before our huts
Of fire, steel, and stone
This Earth strode alone
Palaces
Of light, blood, and bone

Ever changing, yet ever same
Characters with shared masks
But a different name

At the tips of pyramids,
The giants dance.
Even as we steal the bricks,
For a second
Of prosperity's glance

Our murderers are microscopic,
They train their harpoon.
We were lucky
To have Orcas
In the afternoon

Of the World's Sounds

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 03:30:58 +0000

I carry,
The world’s sounds with me.
A cat’s satisfied purr,
On a hot day the fan’s whirr

Leech

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 03:30:55 +0000

Ours to Light up, Ours to Burn

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 03:30:48 +0000

She is the hot-headed matchstick

And I the rough red side

Of a matchbox.

Forever we tease each other

About how with the

Littlest effort a flame

We could make.

But content with this knowledge,

We sit as friends side by side

Laughing

And Jeering at the world

For it is ours to light up

And ours to burn.

Ambitions

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:34:00 +0000

Blades of grass

With redwood dreams

Compost feasts

And sunlight creams

Dedicated stem

And a piece of the sky

An apical bud to reach ever high

No more dainty flowers

No more depressed clones

Only the best of xylem

For her darling cones

The Toothpick

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:45:00 +0000

The toothpick of propriety

From this sandwich shall fall

After the teeth of age

Have gnawed at bits

And Life digested

The bread away

Then layers

Unravel

Squishy bits

Return to clay

Child-like drawing-me

*Purple (The Purple Pointer)

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:32:00 +0000

The rain has fallen.

Giving way to the shoots of memories,

Strewn along the tar roads, years deep

The sky takes on a peculiar character,

With the clouds quite unwilling to retire,

But ushered out nonetheless

Between the arms

Of the sensuous purple sky,

And the slow breeze

Which takes care to weave itself,

Between every, strand of her hair.

The past has manifested as a mood

Not only on our small window to the universe

Tonight's Nightmare

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:43:00 +0000

Pick pick Dear Mind,

Pick pick.

Tonight’s Nightmare

Pick pick

Shall it be the day’s proceedings,

And the world’s rejections?

Or will the dark locked trunks,

Come avisiting,

Carrying within

Burned moral objections?

Pick pick Dear Mind,

Pick pick.

Tonight’s nightmare

Pick pick.

Shall your heart be embraced

By mismatched arms?

Or should the skeletons rise

From friendship farms?

Pick pick

Dear Mind

pick pick

Eyes closed

The inside is out

Inner Cultures

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Purple Monsters,

With UV spears stand guard,

Pleasures in a plastic card

Sparkling glasses

Strange cut sights

On the right meet the lights,

Smoke without fire,

Mr. Tyndall hanging on to the light spire

Throbbing bodies

Smoky eyes,

Questionable motives,

Screaming lies.

A little numbing of the nerves,

Low frequency beats,

To the inner cultures,

Front row seats

Immortality Naïve

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:50:00 +0000

These walls shall be filled with words

With emotions these rooms overflow

For a thousand years I shall live

And in their minds forever grow

Drops Vacillate

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:01:00 +0000

Drops from the drizzle
Hit me like unsure thoughts.
A glimpse into the future.
The coming storm,
And the drenching rain,
Of the path soon to be blind
And the smile,
These lips shall have to feign.
Of the laughter drowned by the thunder,
The unwelcome guest,
Once a stranger named Pain.
As the liquid becomes a second skin,
Do I a new footprint make?
Or the last one take away?
With shoulders wide,
Do battle?
Or cower,
At the image these drops portray?

Medic

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:31:00 +0000

Bandages in my pocket
On my hands the smell of blood
Eyes close
Ears try to drown
The wails for their saviour
In white, for those with hope
In black, for those without.

Outside,
Children’s eyes
Where the innocence nourishing tears
Have long dried.
The deserts
Now to the spores of hate
Give shelter.

The thought and the wish
To understand why,
Have both grown weary
But that field tires not,
Sending to me steadily
Skin and bones
That once made people.

Trespasser

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Staked a claim and flew away.

Barren patch of land,

Wished to be a garden,

But the gardener is away.

There is a board that holds place.

Declaring loudly,

The prosecution of trespassers.

But the paint is peeling,

And the iron rusts.

The land feels forgotten,

And for caring hands lusts.

Go ahead, bend the wires and step through.

Barren now,

But could be a garden to you.

Img: http://lawisjustice.deviantart.com/art/No-Tresspassing-91782954

CStruck

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:17:00 +0000

Cries of despair and joy ring out

Bullets are shot and he goes ploughing through

DooMLoRD has arrived

Doing what he was meant tot do

At his side RAB and .avi like hound dogs rounding up sheep

Give push a nighthawk and bullets will shove you down

cobra slithers with his deadly bite

yobo towards you runs

Of life you are quickly light

M!THRAND!R with his shotgun

Oh, how he spoils the close range fun.
KillRoy is there but never arrives.

Three Centimeters Short

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:45:00 +0000

At the congregation of poets
Words moved the world
Words moved the heart
With their pens they wrote
Each line a beautiful thought
As the evening meeting continued
Each line they read
Took them further
Down beauty’s road
Every step was a dream
And they were free to roam
Even as the night turned to dawn
They went on and on
With their dreams and thoughts
They explored for miles and miles.
When the words stopped
They went home
For their dreams could no longer cater
Too bad, for you began
Three centimeters later