TO SEE
To see
as I see you,
through beetle eyes—
mosaic percussion
of hundred incarnations,
to see,
as I see you
through strange beetle eyes—
like
strange art
on cryptic flowers,
strange streaks
at strange places.
TO THINK
Like the one
who sits cowered
in the haunt
of the anticipated halt,
mind riveting
like a forced swing,
head synchronized
with the ejaculating bus,
the light of creatures
and things,
passing
in and out
as it...
STEPHEN MCQUIGGAN
The voice from the intercom froze Tina in the act of adjusting her garter belt. It wasn’t the information the voice relayed, for in truth she had been checking the digital readout (half concealed by condom packets, jars of lube, whips and furry handcuffs) every few minutes and...
Anthony Ilacqua
The soda burned my nose a little. I took half the bottle in one swallow anyway. “I want to see the glass blowers,” Jill said.
I pulled the soda bottle away from the face. “The air feels good here,” I said. The clouds over the ocean were rolling in...
Publisher: Red River (2018)
ISBN-10: 8193613066
ISBN-13: 978-8193613061
Price: 300 INR
Reviewed by: Koushik Sen
Namrata Pathak’s book of poems, that’s how Mirai eats a pomegranate, although has myriad patterns, raises itself in a kind of impasto, that has the jump scare effect by a behemoth. Sometimes, this figure is invoked with an uncanny...
Old Men Walk Funny
Old men walk funny with shadows and time eating at their heels.
Pediatric walkers, prostate exams, bend over, then most die.
They grow poor, leave their grocery list at home,
and forget their social security checks bank account numbers,
dwell on whether they wear dentures, uppers or lowers;
did they...
MOLD
When you left
and I left
When we both left
our glasses
to the loneliness
that'll babysit
our leaving
the place
that has seen
us naked
in each one
of our eyes
There were islands;
green irises & black pupils
they floated the way
we buoyed in that moment
of intimacy.
INCENSE RIBS
I am thinking of you.
Don't move.
Let the cars run over.
Let people walk through.
Let rain...
Jessica Bergquist
I wonder how this looks, but I don’t wonder long enough to stop myself from walking in the door. I am faintly aware of the story that the tears in my black dress tells everyone around me, but I still open the door. It’s the first time I’ve...
Distant Thunder
I. Monster Mash
My sister noticed first:
“You walk like an old lady.”
I was forty-six, but she was right.
I could not, would not, see.
One day on the beach in Hermosa,
walking along the shore,
I stopped and looked back.
The sea tried to hide the evidence
but I was too quick:
step slide, step slide,...
I PASS YOU AN EMPTY SKY
I just
love when
I pass you
an empty
sky
and you
spin it
then
hand me
back
a fistful
of stars.
ENTANGLEMENT 1
You reach through
this spiral of settling light
and touch
a drifting,
mislaid piece
of dust.
You lift it
and somewhere else
in time and space,
something in me
rises.
ENTANGLEMENT 2
On this ground I plant
a seed.
I lay by this mound
of peat moss and...
THE TRANSLATOR
You once contributed to a study. You said
what you took seemed superior to what you left behind.
You got the letter but never joined the team.
You put on a different costume, but you’re always a shaman.
You said you would storm the studio
and seize the local reality from the projectors.
You...
Balasan
I’ve met the river before, but this is a new setting—
like meeting a parent in their office.
Bala—sand, san—stone:
a river baptised for spitting its monsoonal gifts,
like calling a girl Khushi, to bait happiness.
The mountains that fight the grease of dust
when we look at it from Matigara,
they are here now, my...
Checkmate
This is how it rains.
A cloudburst
when you laugh and compete
with the spattering droplets
and I
harvest a silence
in a pair of pretentious shades
tears have long muted
consoled and labelled.
Everything has a cure
but no one knows or recalls
what heals first
pain or time?
We possess disintegrated memories
petals, showers, ice pellets, leaves, dust, debris, gust, silence
scattered
in...