Poetry

Masscult Elation about well-timed ascendancy has a certain piquancy. It extends to those not affiliated to it. When *M C Sher’s flowing tongue capsules his long haul his happiness is mine, tap- ping into frozen areas of my campaign. In rooting for this Gully Boy I begin to rekindle my abandoned side. *Siddhant Chaturvedi in Gully Boy, breakout...

Yarn I. Spread out like a tangential curve, perched on window balconies, I would stare at each abraded line of the sun The sky was my favorite thing, how if I lay horizontally, departed from the forces of gravity and the will of life, everything was united A quiet murmur would rush across the diaphragm, knots and levers humming slowly...

Before I spoke their language as a philosopher. I assumed harsh consonants accidents. I stood in long lines at their communions. They laid hands on. I listened bent forward. I sat under their lectures, taking notes. The seemed clean, free of the stain of questions. They dressed so nicely, invited me out -- Beerhall nights where we...

Midsummer i I was inside a labyrinth: A flood in front of me. The endless surge and fall of water. The deep ocean surface wavered before turned in white waves. When the waves receded, they left a little shimmer in my little eyes. At a distance, something washed ashore. A blue...

On the Crossroads O’ father, hold my fingers in your firm grip and help me cross the road.   Suspicion I’ve burnt myself half, fortuitously. And deliberately, left the rest unburned.   Bike Accident Helmet transforms into a skull. The road runs as usual.   Insomnia Night burns into an ashtray. I fly to you with the wings of ashes.

A Fever of Living Some nights step lightly, like lily-shadows in blue water- apparitions in transit, between dreams. She awakens in a translucent purgatory- a tread from an incipient dream to a feverish slumber, to a body - a map of nocturnal metamorphosis, lacerated fish belly sewn with orange seams, eyes like butterflies in rivulets of pee, unmade and...

On Reflection a silent tree frog clings to broken shelves of stone rippled by the breeze water colors blend and blur illusions of perfection   Beads clusters of black pearls press into the palms of clouds— a broken necklace that slips between my fingers rains upon this garden path

11 243 Meters, Purple Mediterranean                                                  The airplane wings draw new summer fragrances in the fogs they’re expected by tomorrow's smiles like a dawn or maybe a dusk with a calm, lazy eyes the day can witness the providence through all the blue truths the winds lose their hearing with the speed of a fatal...

A Dream of Youth When we meet, we’ll fly together caressing each other with our enthralling beak, We’ll sing the half-elapsed song Twitter, twitter, twitter... We’ll territorialize the sky, Colonise her spheres, Our wheezing would form thunder. We’ll bathe in the rainbow, Suck the evening twilight, Soar down to nestle in the unfamiliar nest of opportunity. We’ll mouth each other’s adventure, Will laugh...

Heirloom When your mother raises her hand; earthy brown, skin cracked open— sun parched field— iron hot temper and hits you the pain melts your flesh, bones, marrow. When your mother raises her hand to strike you the pain bites (your pet rabid dog). She throws the foliage of her swallowed dreams— barren land that was hers and her mother’s and her mother’s mother who couldn’t...

RIVERS Should I multiply or divide my soul in rivers under sheltering domes? I have left bits of me in the Elbe and the Rhine. I have left liquid tears in the lighted Seine. Paris, Berlin, Dresden -- each city is an epic, a tome. In rose gardens in the day or beer-gardens at night I have ranged and roamed. The...

The Fog of Pain You told me not to worry. As many speakers would be along the way, entering through the different doors, could tell us about the stars’ songs, theories, and critical turns. But, do you know, in the rain-wet afternoon, among the full house audience, I was absent?...