Akhilesh Mishra and Shirley Powers
Deputy Counsul General Akhilesh Mishra, Consulate General of India, has been posted in San Francisco since 2001.
He served earlier in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi (1999-2001) and in the Indian Embassies in
Kathmandu, Nepal (1996-99); Rome, Italy (1993-96); and Lima, Peru (1991-1993). As an amateur poet, he writes in both Hindi and English.
Akhilesh Mishra says “I am not a poet, and have just started scribbling thanks to the magical air of San Francisco,
laden with mysterious fog and California's golden land, inspiring creativity and innovation of all kinds.”
Land of golden dreams
Myriad dreams radiating from every speck of golden dust,
Dreams seeded in miraculously modified genes,
Growing copiously in flowers and wineries and fruit gardens
The magical air tenderly carrying million dreams on trial- balloons-
chasing stars, in the space unbounded.
Balloons secretly monitoring the affairs unfolding in the dark corner of the nucleus.
Dreams collapsing due to a misfit atom in the nano-skyscraper.
Dreams burst by the prick of an alien thread in the web of genome.
Million dreams mingled with water
washing plates in a hotel and dirty linen of others in homes,
Dropping like pearls from the eyes of a newly wed bride thousand miles away.
Dreams being sipped, like rasam by a thousand Bill Gates carrying eight dollars in pocket
Dreams painted with numerous hands, white, black, brown, yellow and all possible shades
Dreams shining with myriad colors,
And resonating with thousand languages and dialects
Dreams blessed by the Almighty bearing million names
Like the moon mirrored in billion eyes,
Golden dreams twinkle in countless hearts -
and generate multiple images in every heart,
Throbbing with desire,
to stretch their arms and touch the land of golden dreams, some day,
And hoping to cross,
The un-built bridges of magnificent human resolve,
And cross the fathomless ocean of deprivation and indignity
To create a new world of Golden Dreams!
Akhilesh Mishra
RAGING GRANNIES
by Shirley Powers
Described in local newspapers as
“a choir of elderly women belting out
Make peace instead of war”
we stand on stage facing
250,000 cheering anti-war protesters
in San Francisco
Two dozen Grannies over sixty
wearing sunbonnets covered with
brightly colored crepe paper flowers,
long skirts and fringed shawls
The crowd roars approval at the
end of each song
We call out “What do you want?”
They answer “Peace”
Waves of applause dance in the
sunlight and though I have no
illusions of being another Janis Joplin
I feel like some kind of aging rock star
so anonymous
so personal
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