Listening to the Night Rain [android shi]

The patter of rain     at 3 am drones on
the coolness of night     at winter's end proceeds
 
if fetching my laptop I joust at chess till dawn
would this be a blameworthy waste of time?   what needs
 
the silent yet unrelenting soul contains!
what notions the addled fruitful brain displays!
 
though years pass like dreams     I'm wakeful with these rains
while hidden away     are dawn's untrammeled rays

Shih in Honor of My Art History Teacher [English Shi]

I read about James Cahill on my laptop
and recollect those bygone Berkeley days
where mind is purged of balderdash & claptrap
might truth emerge like hills behind a haze?
such hills beyond a river gleam forever!
yet parting at the shore proceeds apace
insouciant like Ni Zan in bright endeavor
who knew bland beauty doesn't lack for grace?

Laptop Requium [sonnet]

My laptop died & so I write
an android verse in solomn shade
I tried recovery tonight
but Mercury is retrograde
it saw me through some years of life
& helped me land a job (God bless!)
it didn't chance to find a wife
but joined in many games of chess
its battery's been long since shot
but otherwise it's served me fine
this good Fujitsu that I bought
way back in two thousand and nine
or was it two thousand and ten?
whatever - fare thee well old friend

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postcript: the laptop's demise proved to be unwittingly exaggerated; it revived after a visit to the shop.  And this post is being typed on same.

The Poets of Goa

The poets of Goa were hidden
though mutterings pelagic were heard
does poetry reach us unbidden?
a beach with no poets? absurd!

a sky without clouds is a rarity
a field without weeds is most odd
sans poets how show polite charity?
is Goa as silent as God?

===============

This poem is responsive to a prose reflection (posted to Facebook) by Vidya Nayak (who hails from Bangalore, and is lately living part-time in Goa).  She wrote:

Was thinking I have not yet run into a Poet in Chinchinim. Or elsewhere in Goa. Not yet. The signs are all there. I have seen grown men with longish locks, stubble on chins, glasses askew, muttering at the sea. I have seen women sitting on rocks, looking into the sunset, tabloid in hand, the tips of their tongues sticking out, muttering at the sea. I have even caught myself looking into cobalt waters and seeing faint languid outlines floating and dipping beneath the sheen, muttering at the sea.
And the other day, at a party where all was merry and folks were doping and smoking and drinking and generally living it up, the host came up to me and said, you know what, you must meet this friend of mine, he's a poet.
Que sera sera.
(And to be honest, I'm missing them, my poets)