First Rain

When the first rain of monsoon whispers low,
And city skies grow heavy, ready to bestow,
I step outside my urban nest,
To feel the first cool drops against my chest.

The scent of earth rises through the street,
Mingling with the hum of life’s heartbeat,
Pavements slick and gutters flow,
As the city drinks the rain’s sweet glow.

I watch the world awaken from its haze,
As rain begins its city maze,
From rooftops high to gullies deep,
Life stirs and starts its rain-soaked sweep.

Children rush from buildings tall,
Their laughter echoes, bounces off the wall,
Puddles form on asphalt veins,
In this concrete world, the monsoon reigns.

The banyan in the park drinks deep and long,
The fruit vendor hums a rain-soaked song,
Every drop, a note of cheer,
In the urban jungle I hold dear.

I breathe the fragrance of the city’s earth,
A scent that speaks of life’s rebirth,
My heart lifts with each falling bead,
As nature answers every need.

A Night of Jazz

Daily writing prompt

What was the last live performance you saw?

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The stage was small, a cozy little scene,
But the music—oh, it was the queen!
A brilliant vocalist took the lead,
Her voice a powerful, soulful steed.

She had been away, they said, for a time,
Battling storms, climbing mountains to climb.
But here she stood, in the spotlight’s glow,
Her voice richer, deeper, a warm alto.

A four-piece band was her loyal crew,
On drums, bass, and piano they flew.
Their notes were tight, yet wildly free,
Crafting waves in a musical sea.

As the night unfolded, guest stars took the stage,
Each one adding a story to the page.
Classic blues and jazz songs filled the air,
Songs of love, of life, of despair.

But it was she, the woman with the mic,
Who held us all in her melodic dike.
Her comeback was not merely a return,
But a lesson in how music can burn.

In the quiet that followed, I felt anew,
How music, like morning, can renew.
And as I walked out into the night,
The stars above seemed to burn more bright.

Borrowed Tunes

In the point where the digital and the analogue bleed,
a question emerges from the silence —
what do we lose when we weave
the old into the new, not as homage,
but as habit, as need?

Bach, had he wandered into this age of echo and replay,
might pause — a hitch in his relentless quest for the untouched, the raw.
For in the act of sampling, where is the line drawn between tribute and theft,
between the artist’s need to create and the industry’s churn for more?

This culture of reuse, of endless iteration,
does it not hint at a well running dry, a sort of creative desperation?
A landscape littered with fragments of the past,
rearranged but somehow less than their sum.

The jazz that once exploded in spontaneous combustion,
The rock that rolled in rebellion, without instruction,
Now find their spirits captured, a function
Of a trend that values replication over induction.

Is this what we’ve come to — a world where the new is just the old,
repackaged, resold, told that it’s how it’s done “these days”?
Where the pulse of innovation, once fierce and uncontrolled,
now beats to the rhythm of what’s already been consoled?

Yet, there’s an art to remembering, to remixing the threads of what we’ve heard,
to keeping alive the voices of those who’ve come before.
But the challenge remains — to add, not just to take,
to innovate, not stagnate, for the sake of originality.

The road stretches out, infinite, inviting,
a journey not just of distance, but of insight and discovery.
In the end, perhaps it’s about balance, about finding a way
to honour the past while still making something fresh and new.

Fortune’s Leash

Daily writing prompt

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

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While playing in the street, one day,
With a dog as white as milk,
A stranger paused to say,
“That mutt will bring luck your way.”

Her words, light as a feather’s touch,
Left me pondering, oh so much,
Could a dog, so merry and such,
Really bring luck with every nuzz?

I laughed, the thought quite droll,
That luck could be on a stroll,
In fur as white as coal is black,
Leading fortune on its track.

Yet since that day, I must confess,
Life’s shown a bit more, not less,
Of abundance, in its fine address.
Perhaps the stranger knew, God bless.

Whispers on the Wind

Daily writing prompt

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

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A thought drifts,
a leaf on the stream of my mind,
twirling, unfixed,
where does it begin? Where does it end?
Or does it simply flow,
a river of light and shadow,
touched by the sun, swallowed by the canyon.

I hear a clock ticking somewhere,
or is it just the tapping of a branch against the window,
the world outside reaching in,
or is it my heart, beating a steady rhythm
against the ribcage of routine?

Coffee steams on the table,
curls up like a cat in the morning light,
its scent a memory,
a morning years ago, or was it just yesterday,
when the rain fell in sheets,
thick as the curtains in an old movie theater,
muffling the world into a hush?

Words hover like hummingbirds,
eager, elusive,
dipping into the bright flowers of ideas,
never quite landing,
never quite still,
each a burst of colour,
vibrant and fleeting,
a heartbeat captured in mid-flight.

Laughter bubbles up,
a wellspring from the depths,
why did it come? From a joke, a memory?
It fades before I grasp it,
but leaves a warmth,
a lingering glow that paints the world gold.

The pages of a book lie open,
each word a stepping stone across a stream,
I wander across them,
lose my way,
find it again in the plot,
a character’s sigh, a twist of fate,
like walking through a forest,
every tree familiar, mysterious.

Ode to a Future Harvest

Daily writing prompt

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

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I saw myself, in 10 years’ time, on a stretch of land where the old world whispers,
in the tranquility of a European village, where the earth holds deep secrets and the air is thick with the past.
There, amidst the rolling fields kissed by the soft sun,
I build my sanctuary, a farm, where time slows its relentless march and simplicity breathes.

With cats that slink and curl between beams of sunlight,
with dogs that bound, their joy uncontainable, across the expanse of open land,
with the humble company of farm animals, each a character, a companion,
in this workshop of living, I weave my days.

I plant my roots deep in the soil, fertile and rich, a foundation of centuries,
where vegetables and flowers bloom like a painter’s palette splashed across the canvas of green,
each season cycles like verses in a long, lyrical poem penned by the earth itself.
Here, the quiet hum of the village life sings a gentle lullaby.

The barn, a cathedral of rustic, aged wood, stands solemn, sacred,
a monument to the pastoral life long dreamed of in the restless city nights.
Here, peace is not just a concept, but something palpable, as real as the dirt under my fingernails,
as the smell of rain on wind, as the warmth of the sun on my face.

I trade the blaring horns and the clatter of machines for the morning calls of roosters,
the twilight whispers of the wind through the trees,
for the celestial quiet of the countryside and the rhythmic chant of cicadas as dusk falls.
This is where my soul finds its pause, its deep, fulfilling breath.

Freedom here is not solitary, it’s a chorus of life, of interconnection,
a daily dialogue with nature, with the creatures that share my slice of paradise.
In this envisioned future, my spirit dances with the infinite, where every leaf, every cloud, every star is a poem,
where the land itself writes stanzas on the sky.

In this future, I am not just a keeper of land, but a seeker of truths,
taught by the steady growth of oak, the resilience of pine,
the eternal wisdom of the earth beneath, the expansive teachings of the open sky above,
in a village that cradles my existence like a timeless hymn.

This is where I see myself, not just surviving, but thriving,
in a communion with the earth, a pact with the simplicity of life,
where the frenzy of the ‘now’ yields to the profound pulse of the ‘eternal’,
in the heart of a village, my home, a sanctuary not just made, but deeply, truly lived.

The Park Behind My Apartment

Beneath the shadow of my urban cell,
Lies a slice of Eden amidst this concrete hell,
A park whispers, behind the apartment’s looming swell,
A place where nature and my spirit dwell.

Here, in the quietude beneath the city’s blight,
I find a stage for the day’s soft light,
Playing through branches, a ballet of might,
Dancing alone, away from the night.

The trees, they speak in tongues so old,
Of secrets within the bark, fold by fold,
In whispers, they echo the tales I’ve told,
To the open air, bold and cold.

In this garden of solace, I shed my skin,
The digital shroud, worn thin,
Amongst the green, I begin
To breathe, to live, to spin.

A lone bench bears witness to my rebirth,
In the lap of earth, I find what I’m worth,
Away from the screens, the artificial mirth,
Here, I’m tethered to the dirt, the hearth.

The juxtaposition of life and decay,
Mirrors my own poetic fray,
In the decay, life; in life, decay,
A cycle that whispers, “It’s okay.”

For in this park, behind walls built high,
I touch the sky, I do not die,
But live in the limbo, where I can fly,
Between the ground and the open sky.

Technofeudalism

I’ve seen the best minds of my generation, caught in the web of techno feudalism,
dragged through captcha chains, hypnotised by infinite scrolls,
who, naked and bewildered by the glare of screens,
sit down at the edge of virtual realms, contemplating the blockchain beast.
Who’ve been promised lands in digital utopias, yet find themselves
peasants in the pixellated fiefs of Silicon overlords.
Who, in their sleek towers, decree the algorithms that dictate fate,
coding the new serfdom into the architecture of our days.
Where privacy is bartered for convenience, a new age currency,
traded in marketplaces that span the electric ether,
where data is the lord, and we, the vassals, toil in fields of information,
harvesting likes, shares, clicks, in the feudal farms of social media.
Who wander through electronic markets, souls barcoded,
tracked by the ever-watchful eyes of digital watchdogs,
in search of an authentic connection, a touch, a voice,
that isn’t mediated by screens, by wires, by the invisible currents
that carry our desires, our fears, our dreams,
into the data vaults of new age monarchs,
who preach the gospel of connectivity, while weaving the chains of dependency,
crafting a panopticon of likes, of notifications, of engagement.
A maze with no exit, where every click leads deeper,
where freedom is just another app, another device,
a promise always just out of reach, in the update, in the next version,
in the sprawling, sprawling sprawl of techno feudalism.

In this digital night, my cry echoes, a call to take up ammo,
against the gentle tyranny of screens, the silent erosion of our will,
by the soft power of notifications, the constant beckoning of the glow,
a reminder that in this landscape of ones and zeros,
our humanity, our spirit, our resistance, is the glitch in the system,
the hope, the dream, weaving through the code,
a virus of liberty, of equality, in the machine of technofeudalism.