Blood of Vampires | Ananya S. Guha
Dig at it,
the graves
you may not find bodies
not human enough
but pests and vermin
flat-footed monkeys
owlish ghouls, remnants of tears, deceased with hollowed skeleton
marks
blood of vampires.
read poetry
No Fool | Ananya S. Guha
I have whittled away sorrows
in a tempest that hurled life’s
abuse. After the storm came not the calm but raking ancient sorrows.
Frittering away does not do,
what does is embracing self,
maudlin, and thinking all is lost.
Call me a pessimist if you will, this is a tired song
not ill. Parting is one measure, then lay siege to all treasure.
Whittling away sorrows is sharpening a tool
come on everyone I am no fool.
Table Talk | Ananya S. Guha
Take this out, this spite, this hatred, this venom, take out those
guns, don’t spit fire in a messy world, talk to the child, ever so
mildly, wrench books out of hand oh unforgiving masters, dispense with justice, don’t split the atom, talk about disarmament in closeted rooms
sign papers and let the table talk rant mercifully.
At the Same Time | Roger Still
Contemporaries.
Two faces at the table
a world apart
ages separated
locked in conversation
in the same moment
in the same dull sound
of coffee brewing
on the same earth
tasting the same dust.
My Little Little Nose | Ananya S. Guha
I have begun,
advent into journey
now my life’s tourney,
a game, why blame
people and friends
rascals, fiends
the journey began
precisely at home,
took time off and read tomes, then took to writing
up and down
in my little shanty town
and, as rains kept on pouring I took to life
in its whirlpool of suffering
amidst all the rife.
All the broken bones I saw
while some laughed ha-ha. This is poetry, that is prose, I
exclaimed, under, my little little
nose.
Teaching Marquez | Namrata Pathak
you know you are not in love
when the pronouns curl up
in a sun-mowed body
you and he
in crow-stooping shadows
float upstream
as a bunch of storm-buds
between pages
Marquez
that you won’t read otherwise
measures
love in a dark
and dank teaspoon
you can gulp it down
with the yeast-crumbs
old Margarite gave you
love is difficult to digest
birding is easier
you teach about the woman
with a dandelion-laced gown
who
in shreds and skin
becomes one scaly
rough
potato-grower
sometimes roots
are edible light
they smell of sweaty hands
two acres away
glass-ants
circle
the letters
that you pretend
not to read
they are
bitten
into
agile psychopaths
you
only you
want free Wifi at night
to heal love
in medicated quantities
Marquez can wait
for another day
when
the sun is
half an arc
and pines
less shrill
in Chasingre
Within Minutes… | Ananya S. Guha
Within minutes it was gone
the rains
my element of surprise
my dashboard of sorrow
my springs of memories
it came dashing down these
corrugated hills, down their
slopes, hurtling into ravines, deep slopes and gorges
but they were gone, just as one thought the monsoons would lash. In
corridors I remember mackintoshes, and an Alsatian chasing our dreams in school. The rains then were thick skinned as we avoided their merciless rumpus.