Winters!!! by Aditya Kumar
Through the window, i feel something slide gently past . It`s the cool wind, long past midnight with the solemn promise. The promise that the winters will soon be there. enthralled was my soul and joyfully jumped forth exalted i was to think It won`t be long, before the houses will get cozier with fires, […]
The Lent Lily by A. E. Housman
‘Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there’s the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there’s the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day. And since till girls go […]
Winters!!! by Aditya Kumar
Through the window, i feel something slide gently past . It`s the cool wind, long past midnight with the solemn promise. The promise that the winters will soon be there. enthralled was my soul and joyfully jumped forth exalted i was to think It won`t be long, before the houses will get cozier with fires, […]
The Lent Lily by A. E. Housman
‘Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there’s the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there’s the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day. And since till girls go […]
Broken wings of a Heart by Saajida Gora
Deepest oceans, mountains high, I wish I cud sail Through the libertied sky, Darkness surrounds Silencing the sounds Pangs of memories Are the only thing that hounds The rythmic beating tells a story untold To the world around her Solitude is gold She longs for the sunlight But the ocean sealed a vow She longs […]
Being Underwater by Sahiti Siddharth
Being underwater is like a trip to heaven Being underwater is so sweet Being underwater is like flying in the ocean Where the surface is meters beneath your feet Being underwater is like a dream come true I wish it was real, but the chances are few Being underwater is like returning to childhood When […]
ASHA APARTMENTS, 416, S.V. ROAD by Santosh Kumar Panda
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Not Thursday Again Friday Not Saturday This time you disappeared on Thursday Saturday… was my… holiday Crossing the divider & using the long distance route for my destination I waited unknowingly going on in desperate Then here you come & checked me crossing the divider This is alone I look forward to […]
As if by Sara Herlihy
As if by Sara Herlihy Like a cloud Listless Hopeless Floating through a clear blue sky waiting… Just waiting… Until I evaporate and disappear. As if I never was. As if I didn’t impact the millions of eyes who saw my magnificent beauty grace their souls. As if I never was. I KNOW I was […]
Amity’s Death by SAAJIDA GORA
Woe is unto me Thou shalt never see. Despair, Despair, despair Viciously ripped, unaware Beams of amity like the essence of air Flowed smoothly through destined to share So precious, so pearly, so diamondly rare Velvety threads of gentle care Time has sought the light of th sun Time has sought the […]
A Writer’s Pen by Sahiti Siddharth
A pen, when a writer holds A brand new chapter unfolds A few lines can make him the king It can make him fly on a single wing A writer without his pen Is like a leader without powers A writer without his pen Is like a garden without flowers A writer’s pen Makes him […]
A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies by S. K. Kelen
A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies by S. K. Kelen 1. To arrive anywhere tonight you travel a road lit only by fireflies to towns whose names really mean ‘tomb of a hundred martyrs’. Invisible birds sing tinkling vowels — words from a time before history invaded. Frogs roar louder and louder kick-starting a […]
A Father’s Hands by Scott Ransopher
A Father’s Hands by Scott Ransopher Men would bet upon her father’s hands. Could he pick up in just one fist A dozen eggs scattered on the table– One by one–cracking none? He’d reach his hand (stretched at five by Pulsing milk from freshened cows) And settle shells beneath knuckle’s crease. Then pressing oh so […]
The Space Heater by Sharon Olds
The Space Heater by Sharon Olds On the then-below-zero day, it was on, near the patients’ chair, the old heater kept by the analyst’s couch, at the end, like the infant’s headstone that was added near the foot of my father’s grave. And it was hot, with the almost laughing satire of a fire’s heat, […]
The Pact by Sharon Olds
The Pact by Sharon Olds We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at noon into her one ounce of cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to kill herself. We kneeled over the rubber bodies, gave them baths carefully, scrubbed their little orange hands, wrapped them […]
The Mortal One by Sharon Olds
The Mortal One by Sharon Olds Three months after he lies dead, that long yellow narrow body, not like Christ but like one of his saints, the naked ones in the paintings whose bodies are done in gilt, all knees and raw ribs, the ones who died of nettles, bile, the one who died roasted […]
The End by Sharon Olds
The End by Sharon Olds We decided to have the abortion, became killers together. The period that came changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple who had been for life. As we talked of it in bed, the crash was not a surprise. We went to the window, looked at the crushed cars and […]
The Borders by Sharon Olds
The Borders by Sharon Olds To say that she came into me, from another world, is not true. Nothing comes into the universe and nothing leaves it. My mother—I mean my daughter did not enter me. She began to exist inside me—she appeared within me. And my mother did not enter me. When she lay […]
Primitive by Sharon Olds
Primitive by Sharon Olds I have heard about the civilized, the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are savages. You come in with a bag, hold it out to me in silence. I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it and understand the message: I have pleased you […]
1954 by Sharon Olds
1954 by Sharon Olds Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt he had put on her face. And her training bra scared me—the newspapers, morning and evening, kept saying it, training bra, as if the cups of it had been calling the breasts up—he buried her in it, perhaps he had never bothered to […]
Winter by Shaunna Harper
She does not thaw in summer, her iced skeleton a visceral display of sapphire veins and pulses bolting in shock to the outskirts of her shores, splayed like a victim. She is perpetual frost, crying sharp diamond tears that leave chips across hard flesh like braille, like fallen teeth from a corpse; the sun bores […]
Twilight by Shaunna Harper
A prayer lifts itself from my mouth between tight teeth and soft lips, grows wings, leaves like a moth by the window trying to find the moon, sings, as the moist earth cools below. As always, twilight has come too soon. Lifted by light like a Chinese lantern, I watch the night sink, its star […]
The Other Half by Shaunna Harper
The Other Half by Shaunna Harper Your lips are still on my lipstick. Your eyes are still on my eyeshadow brush. You’re still wearing my favourite shirt; go on, keep it, if you must. The bags you unpacked are under your eyes; see that drawing? It’s tattooed on your skin. All those lies I heard […]
River by Shaunna Harper
River by Shaunna Harper You can’t tell a river which way to run. Trees flank his cerulean depths like soldiers, armed with sticks and leaves, ever-reaching, seizing, only to be swept aside. A river has no place to hide. He is never the same when he comes back; a little older, a little darker, carrying […]
Passing by Shaunna Harper
They’ve strung up your face on canvas carved in glass across the city’s overpass. Your eyes are bulging mole-hills. Your hair is sprouting grass. In the backdrop of a cheap shop’s parking lot, a broken sign curls around your head like a halo; when winter comes you will sparkle with snow. Each fractured letter blinks […]
Book Leaf by Shaunna Harper
They tread between lines, hanging metaphors like rope, veined toes curled around loops like branches. They reach from depths to skies, scatter each other here and there like soft blessings, seeping like ink into paper. They press between pages like insects, intricate, frail, anorexic outbursts in perpetual shock. They dance off-beat like drunkards, ignorant of […]
The Victory by Shahida Latif
The Victory by Shahida Latif Both the parties contest the game of blood, One kills hundred; the other hundred one, The other wins the victory only for the one, But who knows that two hundred and one Who are killed, each one is a mother’s son.
The Spring passing away by Shailendra Chauhan
The river is a river everyday The bridge everyday is a bridge The driver, jeep, contractor All the same … Why the mind doesn’t go beyond these? Looking around that day I witnessed the trees Passing away was the Spring. Passing over the Kurjan bridge I saw the sky full of clouds Expanding was the […]
The Ineffectual Dives by Shahida Latif
The Ineffectual Dives by Shahida Latif The World: a moving alive picture, A display, exhibition of pain, Saddening events and agonizing soreness, Where blood flows, shreds lay scattered, Amid the skeletons and dispersed skulls, Under the shadows of spurting mushrooms. A place where demons of troubles, Are nourished, fed and brought up, To make humanity […]
The Earth Trembles by Shahida Latif
The Earth Trembles by Shahida Latif The loathsome earth trembles, Under the load of humanity, At each step rises the wrath, With the surging waves of agony, Bringing ashore, Log-like limbless bodies, Colouring with blood, The coastal sands.
The Demon by Shawn Ervin
The Demon by Shawn Ervin This journey I make alone, down further into the brimstone, I enter the realm seeing nothing but anger and hate, A stench of death and decay, the feeling of the prey, Before it is destroyed by the hunter, the feeling it’s too late, It comes for me; I can feel […]
The Callous Statues by Shahida Latif
The Callous Statues by Shahida Latif The callous statues, Sitting in front of the computers: The calculating machines, Press the buttons to launch havocs, Can not calculate the magnitude, Of pangs, pains and sheerness of cries, When they fall with deafening explosions, Upon the heads of humanity: Mewling infants, schooling kids, Women old and young; […]
Sheppard’s Quest by Shawn Ervin
Sheppard’s Quest by Shawn Ervin They talk to me, they guide me to here, I push and push, but still they lead, Madness is creeping in, but still the voices feed, Feeding a drive, pushing me to near, The source, and still they lead, My soul is tearing, my sanity is sheared. They have guided […]
Repentance by Shailendra Chauhan
Go to the tree Tell it what is right Go to the river Tell the water your fears of mind Idols carved on stones are there in temples Go and confess to them Although you wish to tell that to a person like you only But you are afraid he may tell this to somebody […]
Serendipity by Seema Gupta
The moment few groaning stars descend on the beauty of nightMoonlight flickering too shyBe reduced in the arms of seaand Chill tippet of winds Scattered on the shoulders of the treewish you to become Moon Slipping from the stairs of the horizonto secretly write serendipity on my palmIn desire of which Cache of a few breathsare hiddenin the silence of […]
Evolution by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
Evolution by Sharmagne Leland-St. John I swim near summer shadows glide over dappled shoals keeping to the fluid shallows reminiscent of the womb where I learned to swallow gulps of tantalising air in the amniotic sac where I shed scales preferring skin and hanks of auburn hair upon my head where I dispensed with fins […]
There Were Dry Red Days by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
There Were Dry Red Days by Sharmagne Leland-St. John by Sharmagne Leland-St.John There were dry red days Devoid of clouds Devoid of breeze Sound bruised My burning bones Dirt cracked my hands And caked my cheeks No buds on limbs of trees No birds on branches No hope of rain Scrawny chickens Kicked up dust […]
I Said Coffee by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
I Said Coffee by Sharmagne Leland-St. John I said coffee I didn’t say, “would you like to cup my warm soft breasts in your un-calloused, long, tapered, ring less fingered hands?” I said coffee I didn’t say, “would you like to run your tongue along my neck just below my left ear-lobe?” I said coffee […]
Peaceful Battles by Shekhar Srinivasan
“When He wants you to win, why sweat over those that don’t” The time for judgment had come, Ready to face the trial, Without being beguiled by emotion, Or perturbed by denial, Taking it with a smile on the face, With no guilt or remorse, For truth filled every ounce of effort, With win or […]
Passed Away Pain by Shalini Samuel
I was crawling deep down the woods Red, yellow, orange, green fruits smiling Flowers hanging above banged my head I was crawling, crawling and crawling * Days passed without a way out. Nights frightened me with darkness. Thorns and insects piercing my skin I started walking, walking and walking. * Rough became the forest terrain, […]
Open sky by Shailendra Chauhan
They have closed the door and discussing and creating something I am sitting idly in the lawn under the open sky on green pious grass close to lamp-post Bicycles, motors, trucks are running in the street, I am unable to concentrate I listen to the pruning sound of shears Somebody is trimming the myrtle plants, […]