We’ve covered the nose and what it smells
We’ve covered the ear and ringing bells
Sight, taste and touch now remain
Today I pick the mouth’s domain
In its cavity, an important organ dwells! ***************************************************************
The tongue is such an important thing
It enables one to speak and sing
The lilt of languages
How each race manages
Is a miracle that adds to Life’s zest and zing! ***************************************************************
It has another role to play –
Besides the one of ‘having its say’
Assigned to taste
Whether powder or paste
It can discern food’s very vast array! ***************************************************************
Sometimes the sour
Will make one dour
But often enough
It’s fun stuff
The tang of lime punches power! **************************************************************
The bitter truth can be literal too
The taste of which appeals to few
For diabetics a must
Bitter-gourd or bust
With neem and fenugreek following through! **************************************************************
The fiery hot of chilies
Gives many the Delhi-bellies
Pepper and pickles
The palate tickles
But not for faint-hearted fillies! **************************************************************
Then there’s the element of sweet
Which comes from -cane or -beet
Dessert, cake and candy
With ice-cream, is dandy
Add to the repertoire, some Indian sweetmeat! **************************************************************
To call someone, ‘Salt of the Earth’
Means, of respect, there’s no dearth
So, also, in food
It enhances mood
And a pinch of it in sweet, adds to the mirth! **************************************************************
Let’s end with some of the phrases
That this little muscle raises
Tongue-in-cheek, tongue-twister, tongue-tied
A little slip can take one for a ride
All together now – this organ awesomely amazes!
Author: Gulshan's Gleanings.
PAEANS TO PANGS
‘A hungry man is an angry man’
Is a proverb of many-a-century span
A full belly
Will make him jelly
Then, to please you, he’ll do all that he can! ***********************************************************
Hunger by any other name
Anyhow feels the same
A pregnant woman’s urges
Come in great surges
And early-morning coffee will, even the wildest, tame! ***********************************************************
A gourmand’s hunger
Takes food a step further
Sight, texture and taste
Whether broiled, boiled or baste
Will mark the ‘mmmm’ or, “Yuk! This tastes like blubber!”! ***********************************************************
A friend I know lost her sense of smell
Hence, of most food’s taste, she couldn’t tell
Her appetite she lost
‘Twas Hunger’s high cost
A year later it returned, so the story ends well! ***********************************************************
The hunger of addiction
Is a sad seduction
AAs and NAs
Show de-addiction ways
And help greatly to avoid conviction! ***********************************************************
The hunger for riches
Satisfied by witches
Souls are sold
For pots of gold
Then buried forever in deep ditches! ***********************************************************
The hunger for fame
(Often a vicious game)
Ambition aspires
Till one expires
But only History will endorse that claim! ***********************************************************
The yearning for a beloved’s sight
Is, most times, an Army wife’s blight
Reunions are short
With tension wrought
So kisses are close and embraces tight! ***********************************************************
The ultimate hunger is that of Meera
Her entire Life she devoted to Krishna
Even poison is like wine
When dedicated to The Divine
But very few humans attain that form of Nirvana!
EMOTION EXAMINATION (17OCT15)
Grief is when a beloved dies
And when you finally realize
You’ll never see
Or close be
Till you meet again in Paradise!
*****************************************************
Fear can be debilitating
All sorts of thoughts facilitating
It can give an adrenaline rush
Or the spirit completely crush
And physically, often, mutilating! *****************************************************
Forlornness results in depression
E’en in a crowd, isolation
No one can erase
This curst malaise
Self-help here is the best solution! *****************************************************
Confusion’s state of mind –
Are you in front, or behind
Left or right
Lying down or upright
Turn thoughts loose or tightly bind! ****************************************************
Lethargy is sometimes blamed on the weather
Hot and steamy kind of stupor
But when health is involved
‘Tshould be quickly resolved
Thyroid or anemia could be the end of one’s tether! ****************************************************
Contentment comes from lack of envy
When the bag of Want is no longer heavy
When the mantra of Enough
Calls Covet’s bluff
And Desire’s toll we no longer levy! ****************************************************
Satisfaction in, and of, a job well-done
Is often accompanied by some fun
When one enjoys work
There’s no need to shirk
And, accolades from others, one needs none! ****************************************************
Happiness is a result of the previous two
Of clouds so white and a sky so blue
Someone’s sweet smile
A baby’s lack of guile
Or good news from afar coming through! ***************************************************
Ecstasy, the opposite of agony
Could result from a sudden epiphany
A tasty bite
A tune just right
Or a bout of love-making that’s really sexy!
RAINBOW RUMINATIONS(08SEP15)
The spectrum of light
Starts with white
But when split
Through prism lit
VIBGYOR sets off some delight!
*************************************************
Violet has so many shades
Mauve is one of it’s mellow maids
Purple is royal
To which I’m loyal
And lavender, with it’s fragrance, is the ace of spades!
*************************************************
Indigo is pretty hard to define
‘Tween navy and blue, it has a thin line
It’s history is dark
The British made their mark
Their tax on it was asinine!
*************************************************
The third in the spectrum is the color blue
And it, too, has many a hue
Sky, baby and aquamarine
Check out the stars on a midnight screen
‘Tis a pity that it denotes sadness too!
*************************************************
Another personal favorite is the color green
Except for when jealousy takes on it’s sheen
In Nature’s vast array
It takes our breath away
And in a set of crayons, she’s quite the queen!
*************************************************
Nursery rhymes dubbed poor yellow
A dull and dirty little fellow
But the color of the sun
Can, like glittering gold, stun
And the sight of it in a mango can let off a joyous bellow!
**************************************************
Orange comes in at penultimate
The color of many a splendorous sunset
To the fruit, it gave it’s name
And added to Vitamin C’s fame
It glows as flaming orange to a soft russet!
**************************************************
Who hasn’t experienced the color red
In raging anger or blood shed
But with red roses
True love proposes
And many a bride, in red, is wed!
**************************************************
I started with white – with black I end
With a plea, for a while, to pretend
To be without sight
Just imagine no light
And then, for the blind, some empathy to send!
PROVERBS (08AUG15)
In school we learnt verbs and adverbs
And English lessons often had proverbs
Pithy phrases with sound advice
Wisdom drummed up in a trice
So here we go, without constraints or curbs!
*****************************************************
‘Many hands make light work’
Provided some don’t sneakily shirk
Lightens loads
Smoothens roads
But, round the corner, the opposite can lurk…………………..
*****************************************************
……….’Too many cooks spoil the broth’
Fights ferment and food can froth
But a strong leader
Can, petty problems, peter
And certainly, bigamy can spoil one’s troth!
*****************************************************
‘A hungry man is an angry man’
Starvation can flames fan
Marie Antoinette
Had her body behead
‘Cos she said, “Can’t eat bread? Cakes, can!”!
*****************************************************
‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’
‘Specially if it’s tossed by the boss
Master a skill
Then do what you will
So others can distinguish dear from dross!
*****************************************************
‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’
Jealousy is a monster many-horned
So treat the lady well
Like, of-the-Ball, The Belle
And a chain reaction will be spawned!
*****************************************************
‘No efforts, no comforts’ and ‘No pains, no gains’
Deeply embedded in my memory remains
A shorthand teacher
Was a pithy preacher
‘Practice makes perfect’ granted more boons than banes!
******************************************************
‘A stitch in time, saves nine’
May sound silly and asinine
But when followed
Becomes hallowed
And makes, in Life, a laudable by-line!
******************************************************
‘Every cloud has a silver lining’
When the sun, ‘cos of rain, is a-hiding
But it’s rays behind a cloud
Sings out so loud,
“This too shall pass” — and one comes out smiling!
PAINFUL PONTIFICATIONS (04JULY15)
Anal cramps are a pain in the a__e
They seem to take forever to pass
Besides being motionless
(And by that, i mean movementless)
The tension which ensues makes one see stars!
************************************************************************
Then there’s hiatus hernia
Which isn’t as searing as sciatica
One, in the gullet, gets stuck
The other’s origin is the buttock
One causes a limp, and the other nausea!
************************************************************************
Another pain in the neck is migraine
Which comes more from sunshine than rain
It can make one spue
Hope it never happens to you
It’s like a ticking bomb in the brain!
************************************************************************
Have you ever noticed a minor ache
When you give yourself a hair-wash break
Any twist of a dirty tress
Will make you want to press
A hot-water bottle to it, or, an ice-pack, make!
*************************************************************************
Arthritis in the knuckle
Makes many a finger buckle
Also in other joints
It dreadfully disappoints
But with proscribed steroids, one shouldn’t truckle!
**************************************************************************
For us ladies, hair-removal is mandatory
Elegance comes from being smooth and sedatory
But the pain undergone
Is a wailing song
And almost makes one predatory!
***************************************************************************
Stubbing toes is an exquisite ache
We see stars and eyes tears make
Hobbling around
With toes bandage-bound
We wiggle and waddle like a duck or a drake!
****************************************************************************
Some pains-in-the-neck are the emotional kind
In every walk of Life we’ll them find
Oodles of patience
Salve our conscience
It takes all our guts to be smilingly kind!
****************************************************************************
The worst of all pains are in/of the heart
Blocked-arteries-causive, or tearings-apart
Physically, they can take you straight to heaven
Emotionally, drop you from Heaven No.7
I’m done now — boos or bouquets, you can start!
BIRDS DONE, NOW BEES (08MAY15)
We all know that bees make honey
Better still, ‘tis not for money
Their homes made of wax
Utilize space to the max
Their Life-styles examples of hard-working harmony!
**************************************************************
Wasps are the other immaculate builders
Couldn’t imitate ‘em for love of guilders
Of mud, leaves and paper
They’re the adroit user
But when annoyed, they are electric-shock stingers!
***************************************************************
Bumblebees are marvels of engineering
For good fortune, they’re welcome and endearing
According to Man, they can not fly
But into bamboo they’ll drill and ply
Their stings too are buzzingly searing!
***************************************************************
Beetles generally have a hard shell
Some even have a stinky smell
The scarab in Egypt
Considered sacred in script
They lent their name to The Beatles, who, musically, did excel!
***************************************************************
Butterflies form part of this ditty
ainly because they are so pretty
‘Tween flowers they flitAnd spread-winged they sit
May they never be in the realm of scarcity!
***************************************************************
Bundoos in childhood we cherished
Their iridescence we visually relished
Shiny green and rare
We’d gather them with care
But invariably, from our matchboxes, they vanished!
****************************************************************
Velvet boochies form part of memories nostalgic
Those oh-so-soft, deep cerise-red, sort-of, tic
With the first of the rains
They would appear in our plains
And if we found one we’d really go ecstatic!
*****************************************************************
Then there are those once-a-year visitors
Sumptuous feasts for hungry predators
When the rains are heavy
They crowd ‘round lights like bees-to-honey
Their wings are shed copiously – like inhibitions of seductors!
******************************************************************
Other monsoon-harbingers are dragonflies
Like delicate helicopters they alight and rise
Gossamer wings so iridescent
Watching them makes hearts ascend
How they got their names sure does surprise!
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT THESE?
What would we do without these?
Tell me, Anybody, if you please
When you think about it
You’ll say, “Oh shit!”
And I guarantee your brow will crease!
******************************************************
Let’s start with an ordinary TABLE
As old as an Aesop’s fable
If it didn’t things elevate
We’d be forced to levitate
‘Cos with arthritic knees, we’d never be able!
*******************************************************
Second comes the CHAIR
That would be quite fair
The comfort it can provide
To a weary backside!
Boy! Without it, Life would be a nightmare!
*******************************************************
Now, to the chair, attach WHEELS
For the disabled, delightful deals
Accord ease and mobility
To any and every facility –
Vehicles, pulleys and even thread and fishing reels!
*******************************************************
On REFRIGERATORS we now totally depend
On them a good bit of money we spend
If they, by chance, conk out
We’re ready to scream and shout
Because a lot of food we’d then have to expend!
*******************************************************
Ever wondered how COTTON is spun?
It’s absence anyone would stun
For diyas essential
And a crucial differential
Between comfort and cloth-connected perspiration!
*******************************************************
What do you, Folks, think of a KNIFE
Cause – and ease – of a lot of strife
As a weapon definitely deadly
But helps in the kitchen so readily
And, in a surgeon’s hands, saves many a Life!
*******************************************************
Another kitchen utensil
(As handy as a pencil)
To which I now refer
Is the SPOON to cook and stir
About it’s importance, am sure nobody will cavil!
*******************************************************
BOTTLES are last on this list
But their usage cannot be missed
From Life-saving saline
To Omar Khayyam’s wine
Made of metal, plastic, glass, gourd, hide, wood – anything that matter will resist!
BIRDY BROUHAHA(08NOV14)
Bulbuls bathing in a bowl
Chirping cheerily with all their soul
They sound querulous
But are pretty garrulous
I dearly love their hysterical hyperbole!
***********************************************
Ubiquitous crows – sleek and handsome
Look at my hands and caw a welcome
They’re first in the chain
To gobble up the grain
But hard, stale chapaties, they’ll dip to soften!
************************************************
Wood pigeons patiently bide their time
Cooing softly in poetic rhyme
Their pink feet so delicate
Their pecking immaculate
Moreover, they’re quite fun to mime!
************************************************
Lately, parrots have joined the gang
Previously, for a guava-supper, they noisily sang
But the fruit’s out of season
Grain has become their reason
For perching on our posts, and with squirrels, to clang!
************************************************
An occasional visitor is Black-winged Hawk
We know it’s come when squirrels all-together talk
It bathes in the bird-bath
And in the after-math
Stealthily, successfully, a pigeon or squirrel, stalk!
************************************************
Sometimes sand-babblers swarm
Creating a gentle storm
Each with its yellow beak
Every dry leaf will tweak
Not grain, but grub, is their usual norm!
************************************************
The coucal, with its bright, beady eye
Big, brown-winged, generally shy
Its prey too is larger
Hollow, its holler
Not a high-flier, along walls ‘twill normally ply!
Paeans to Poetry (18SEP14)
A haiku has syllables seventeen
Making poetry in it pretty pristine
Very short and sweet
They’re like a tweet
And generally soft as velveteen!
***************************************
Dohas are couplets Indi-genous
For which Kabir Das was quite famous
Sur Das was school text
I know not who’s next
But Anoop Jalota made them melodious!
***************************************
Four-line verses are called quartrains
Most poems pose in such refrains
They’re easy to rote
Easier to quote
And ballads are sung to soulful strains!
****************************************
Five-line rhymes are limericks
Which i compose just for kicks
They should be funny
Quite often punny
But i use ’em for all-purpose knack-and-knicks!
****************************************
A triolet has rhyming lines eight
They could be cynical, serious or sedate
Make them comical
Or try farcical
Just make sure they ain’t reprobate!
****************************************
A pair of half-a-dozen and then a pair
That’s how sonnets do compare
Paradise was lost
At Milton’s cost
His incomparable ode to despondency and despair!
*****************************************
Then there are the ancients of epic proportion
English, Indian, Greek and Persian
Shakespeare and Valmiki
Homer and Firdousi
They told fine tales in poetic rendition!
Gulshan's Gleanings 