The Poem said to the Doggerel

you'll never be like me,
you don't shatter the heart,
you don't burn into skin,
your canvas is small
& your themes are thin,
whoever reads me touches
the skies by the time I'm done,

The Doggerel replied: but I'm fun.

December Poets

To melt the winter sun, partially,
  and hold it in a glass,
    Agha Shahid Ali,

to love, count to ten,
  then at last
    to grieve,
      Auden,

then, cussedly, leave
  to tread on something
    firmer,
      Rene Sharanya Verma,

to lose, again,
  reach that place, unknown,
    darker,
      Dorothy Parker.

You fear

tr. from Gorakh Pandey's '??????? ?? ??'

Their anger is a thousand years old,
their hate is a thousand years old,
I only give
some rhyme to their
scattered words, to their desire,
and you fear that
I'm stoking fire. 

Yawn by Sarah Rice

Funny how a yawn travels through a room

a pied piper gathering all the rats

In that instant we all draw from the
same source
a great swallowed gasp shoved into our lungs



like socks stuffed in a bag
and the
long outward sigh



That we try to hide it up our
sleeves
makes us culprits in common


like playing truant

with a friend



It�s mostly like this
our bodies
that bind us together

A note for the poets who're emotionally damaged

- keep something in, poetry is corniness managed.

On reading Jerry Pinto's translation of Sachin Kundalkar

No
I don't
have you

but sometimes
I have the exact descriptions
of how I feel without you
and that ought to count
for something.

No reading or writing is
no where close to love
but it breaks breath
just the same,
and some lines
are just as hard,
some, as light,

and yes
the guy that I write about
is not much like
you, when you were here,
or how you must be now,
but
that's
not
because
I am some doe-eyed-mush-monster,
making you sound better
than you were, but because
memory's a crafty-ass thing,
filigreeing the past, some bits
refuse to go, some turn into a blur,
and as it is - I'm not lying -
you were damn sweet, when you were.

???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ???? ?????

????: ????? ???????? ?????,
?????: ????? ?????? ??,
?????: ??? ???, ???????? ?????? ????, ?? ??? ?? ??????, 
????: ??? ?? ???? ????????? ????? ?? ???? ???
        ???? ??? ???? ???? ???, ?? ??? ????? ???? ??
        ??? ???? ?? ???? ???, ?? ?? '??????' ??
?? ??????: ??? ?? ??? ?? ?????, ??? ????????? ?????? ?? ????

???????? ?????????? - ???? ???????

tr. from Vijay Nambisan's 'Elizabeth Oomanchery' (in First Infinities; Poetrywala: 2015)

???????? ??????????,
????? ????????,
????? ?????? ????-???? ????? ?? ?????
???????? ????, "????????? ??,
"?? ?? ???????? ?????????? ??? ??,
"?? ????? ?????????"
?? ???????? ?????????? ?? ??? ?????

???????? ??????????
?? ??? ???? ????? ??
????? ????? ??????
????? ?? ????, "????????? ??,
"?? ?? ???????? ?????????? ??? ??,
"?? ????? ?????????"  
???????? ??????????
?? ??? "???,"
?? ????? ?? ??? ???? 

Vijay Nambisan

 

"Your poetry has gotten better

after your break-up," she said,
"it must be all the feelings, no?"
I replied, somehow trying to be
terse, "I don't know," and thought,
I'd much rather have done **rse.

5 Steps to Get a Bharat Ratna

1. Write bad poetry,
2. Especially about Kashmir,
3. Level a mosque; then do
4. Ensure someone worse follows you
    so that you appear to be "moderate"
    in hindsight, then finally,
5. After lighting a fire, gracefully retire.

(I must be close to winning one
My step 1's already done.)

Marco Polo by Ali Alizadeh

Marco Polo





Maybe it�s the natural
extension of immigration. Maybe

it�s the awesome travel
bugs, making my wife�s feet

uncommonly itchy. I�m not
surprised, at any rate, to hear

the paediatrician�s nickname
for our son. �Marco Polo� suits

his - in utero - trajectory
along the Silk Road, from

Kublai Khan�s Forbidden City
to the snow-covered stones of a caravanserai

in central Turkey

Tuesday Poem: Nature Writing 101 by Catherine Owen

Our minds can turn anything romantic.
Is the problem.
The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes

pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,
at night, like two of Isadora Duncan�s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,
harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren�t our hearts

more similar to wastelands.
We can make it kin, this pollution, children one is