Winning the Toss
Winning the Toss
By Saloni Kaul
The head's up there in all-time honoured milieu
But on the tail's side loud distinct as the cry of the curlew
Is the ultimate statement, the coin's value.
Filtering by Category: Poetry
Startled as Springboard
Startled as Springboard
By Saloni Kaul
A glass walled chapel so unique in rock and wood,
Deft latticed skeleton leaps into tree-branched sky,
Aspiring in forest-screened tongued darkness high
Like long forgotten promises, forgotten good.
How long have you sighed there, how long there stood?
We stumble tearing on you in transfixed delight --
Delight of lovers longing to be somewhere lost --
Yet signs of former civilization sparked at what cost,
All that dart leaping dancing stained glass light
Stirs deeply us as boisterous wind the night.
Even this Bonaparte Gull's exploratory
Mild acrobatics veering in bring smiles in face of fright,
As lonely your thawed lofty look of might
All miracles converges for all to see laudatory;
E pluribus unum* , one from many's conciliatory.
(*out of plurality, oneness)
These Pennsylvania hills still sing your hymns,
Recorded, saved by every nourished bird and tree
Afloat on blue tract meadowed lea;
We take your leave as slow the red waning light dims,
All o'er the open muskeg by woodland lakes' rims.
Minuet in a Teacup
Minuet in a Teacup
By Saloni Kaul
A sail out at sea
Repetitively careens,
A face in storm stares
And makes as though about to intervene.
The sail its love of sea declares,
The face of storm proposes a fee ;
Poses its dares ; offers to share;
Resolute, Sail in the know resists, dare contravenes.
The difference between
The sea and stormy sea
Is light cold or hot air.
Monday Morning
Lying in bed
on a Monday morning
I watch my wife towel off
after showering and think
why can’t I be that towel
rolling over her knolls
basking in her garden
rather than rising
and going to work.
It's not for the Usher to Ask
Many churches today
have a food pantry that never
had a pantry before.
I attend a church like that.
Some folks are well-fixed,
others poor, most betwixt.
Some had money before
but not enough now to pay
the mortgage and then buy food
so the pantry helps them
the same way it helps clients
it has helped for years.
Some folks in the pews quietly
support the pantry with
checks and canned goods
enabling the nouveau poor
to stand in line with the
forever poor on Mondays.
A neighborhood baker slips
into the church Sunday mornings
just prior to the end of service
and quietly stacks his trays
of unsold bread in the dark foyer.
He says nothing and disappears.
No one seems to know
who he is but the hungry
love his bread and word
of its excellence has reached
the woman who leaves church early
and always grabs two loaves
of French baguettes and is
out in the parking lot long
before anyone else and
drives off in a red Mercedes.
Perhaps she’s on unemployment,
low on food stamps or is still
making payments on the car.
It’s not for the usher to ask.
I simply hold the door.