The redundant anaesthetist

I relish bad memory:an off-putting
  retailers trick, to sell me cud
 as with little repairing effect of my own
I come and go;see people in a shameful daze
  in a centre of the hue situation
where from the craziness begins
   the glove in hand bleakness
i have to drink to every night.

Horizontal gravity

It is a little like the middle of the week,
    of the month, of the year ;
  most accurately, the middle of your life,
      and precisely midway the length
              of a funeral..

Written on the back of an ice cream truck, probably by a psychopath

I feel near death situations
are resolvable,with a little grit

I feel sorry for writing this
only now,but I find that

caution has plagued me; I am more
like a poet with absolutely

no idea of what safe imaginations are,
of things that are unearthly,and convenient

for that sort of thing, and I
feel sorry for myself,why not ??

feel wronged by the shape of my hands,
knowing that some of the best poems

could have been written on the back of them,
for what is a poem if not some mucilage

to stick your tongue to, and continuously
taste that terrible feeling

of relishing pain ,and its pleasure
at the same time;nuanced with

a presumable misfortune to come,
because really, if nothing can be written

about the ice cream truck ,like the world
gone ahead, you already hate getting to or

the world like the ice cream truck
honking in your intestinal voids

you may not consider this the impasse,
there is no turning back from

History of the dark room

  light, like life
      came and went through the door

Book Review by Avantika Devray in The Four Quarters Magazine

http://tfqmagazine.org/issue/august-2013/avantika-devray/

THE LAND ABOVE WATER: MANIK SHARMA, WRITERS WORKSHOP 2012

Manik Sharma’s “The Land Above Water” is a collection of thirty odd short poems that leave the reader puzzled and charmed at the same time because of their brevity, their unusual style and their equally unusual rhythm. Mostly unrhymed, these poems seem to be explorations of the poet’s mind into the less charted terrain of everyday things which have been visualised with a difference. Sharma’s poetry can put a reader to the test of being able to comprehend their character and yet create a connect through their sonority.

Notably, the titles of many of the poems seem to have no connection whatsoever with the content. One might expect something from the title at first, but as the poem proceeds, it appears that the poet has written about something completely different. So much so that one might even wonder about the relevance of the title. Perhaps it is this feature that brings them much closer to the heart than other longer and more elaborate poems. In “Living away from mother”, which is a short poem of not more than eight lines, he asks: “Why does mother/ write letters in the dark, / They rain not/ in her arms”. He manages to convey the pain dexterously, albeit in a curtailed fashion. Many of his lines move with a staccato beat, and never numb even for a moment. However, the poet does not seem to have intended to imbue many of his poems with a sense of finality. Apprehension and indecisiveness rule them as they waver throughout the collection.

‘The Auto-rickshaw diaries’ is one of the longest poems in the collection. It is structured in parts which separately narrate three different accounts of an auto-rickshaw ride. Composed of diverse images, this poem is a skilled attempt at analyzing the nuances of observation. In the first section, “By the road”, the descriptions are succinct and direct. But what stand out most evocatively are images of the breeze, the rainwater, the tree on which apples grow aplenty and the lull in the movement of the ‘tuk-tuk’ that sends the rider into an effortless siesta. However, the second and third sections give a pale and fading account into the mind of the speaker who feels as though life is slipping from his clutches. “Endless”, the final section in the book, has desperation, pain and not a little bit of pathos embedded in its verses. For example, Sharma writes, “the fatality of things/ has held me by the throat.”

Sharma’s first book of poems has the potential to interest and charm at the same time. It is a work of art, indeed, and we, as readers, may expect more from him.

-Avantika Devray(courtesy,The Four Quarters magazine)

3:51 am: Looking ahead to winter

We know,the tree trunks by the
road are unbecoming
and their malaise
is a prisoner's refuge,to behold
but all i am able to send
you is a word,to push through
like faint imprints
of your head,still visible
on the bedroom window

We know,you are not in there
not even in the backyard
buried under several
feet of snow,but is it the dog?
We don't know that for sure
but all i am able to send
you is a word,to push through
like the unclean windshield
of the car,having endured
the best days of your sweater

We know you did not leave
my sock in the water tub,
my shirts on the back of the chair
or my underwear under the pillow
but all i am still able to send
you is a word,to push through
like a sea quake,you met alone
breaking against your feet,
in middle of the night

We know,it is no surprise,
the cleverness in your absence
is shaped by your hand
and,shaped like a beginning
but all i am able to send
you is a word,to push through
like a loosely tucked
anniversary card at the
bottom of the closet

We know you had been eying
winter,through the glass of
unaccountable change,a piece of glass
that put my reasoning to death
We know that for sure
but all i am able to send
you is a word,to push through
like an elegy handed behind the back
of the man who cried the most
at this funeral of the year going by

Five seconds
   flashback? No three ! Last breath
a haiku

Needful conversations

Into the conversation she entered,ass first,protesting that the division of one's mind is not to be paid attention by bummed listeners."You can go one way,or you can go the other.There is the night when two men at the cusp,decide between a stall or walking away.But neither looks to the sky.Do you think that is changeable about you? Can you start looking at what pitches sideways?",she said or asked.There was nobody else in the room,i could see her point,despite one of us being drunk out of their mind.However,It floated somewhere beyond her vivid procreation,about the place,where i would eventually stand waiting for it to grow dark,to take a piss in the open,into a veritable hole,not even the moon could fill.

Rejects of my seafaring intelligence

A river like sequence
     of old cars
bought in colors,
   of the houses
       they sit in front of

Potatoes 2

Edge of the brow
  i see signs
of the gulch brightening

All those winters
 wash stains,
on the sun's towel

Monday,a bout of
dejection behind
every lip

Two birds
magnificently in love
only one dives

Phone rings,pens clip
Pads open,ransom
pens clip again

Hunger,faces
hang,over the chest
of mother

A nail in the coffin,
sticks out,
wanting to be last ?

Early spring,
three bodies
found by the river

Flashlights,
the house
across the street

Night,loud voices
on the street
calling my name

Afternoon,bars
of the window
i try to squeeze my head through

Men who drink

Umpteen shadows
    in the alleyways
        inseparable,naturally
Men who drink
are key

Separation..'Billoo'

our slates clean,stood at the same edge
   as judgement,having an age,grew
    tears came off like white strands
    combed off of the skull of reality
     and to not jump,wasn't a way
        to persuade a proper life.
         lived by the solitary ear,
    on one lonely side of the face

City

It pours,the traffic
 like an assault of practice
on psychological termites,
 like tearing posters of endless
roads right from under the sun's frock

 places of birth have been
misplaced
  One after the other,in memory
for there are no lions
in this place,who return
   to be kings

  Cardboard boxes on the roadside
 shudder with an emotional capacity
       the short, thundering lives, chase
 on a stomach full evening,
    when the gay overlords of town
  smash sleeplessness into
     awakenings
   from the boredom of imagining
 better lives,
    A middle aged man,sits
by the street tossing his one good shoe
   in the air,feeling warm
  and unsound with a fear
     of being asked to cross the street

Early morning architects

Rest assured,
  the paunches as they deflate,
 young and old alike
    disbelieve their luck in
  having the sun split image of the morning
     appear beneath them

20 something days

On the 20 something of November,
  no sooner than the cold wind starts to appear
in everything i write
 with each chill and its progression
   down or up the spine,
      an obvious diagram
  the science of which
        a fear,more than a fact
   i believe will arrive,
totalling the oddities i carry
      in my impregnated womb of verse,
          the misunderstood women
     and children i speak for,
   the trees and their unmoving behaviour
       the sky,the moon     their shadowing
apprentices all putting in their
       uninspiring shifts,
   and men bent around them

    into believing,
         if they already didn't
 that a poem is often baseless
      and i wear it
 for 20 something days a month,
        like a hat over my heart

Waiting for the Bus 7:14 am.(Bus note)

Late buses arrive,
  and it is almost worthwhile now,
 to note the ones that do
    Mornings however,can be worse,
 emptying teacups
    deluged by your listlessness

A bus note for he who runs it around these corners Wooden boy

Peace offerings

But we thought our differences
   weren't the disorder
  we came to be known for,
 But we thought the juveniles
    didn't overstep their girdle
  for a lack of toys
     But we thought they weren't
expected to come of age
         the toys,the children alone
       And so we prefixed our visions
with their uninvolved,honest calibrations
           of growth,of the world
  so much so that they nearly convinced us
                as well..

Of those who come to pass

The breeze has
    a gait of estimates,
and it reminds me of what is said
   about strangers,
of conversing with them.
    they roost upon the shoulders
of the settling light,
 to not know them is unsettling
  and to try is a great risk,
        for they ask you
 not where you come from,
    but where you would like to go,
and not for the first time in your life
    with your peer revised morality tattered,
you wonder, if, like the leaf
    you should just go..

Lunch at the Indian coffee house

So i sat at the diner,eating my lunch alone,as i always did,staring at the stem of the spoon at times as it journeyed between my mouth and the bowl. A woman behind the corner of my eye walked up to me stealthily and started to look carefully at the side of my head. This did not come to my notice,until she took a pocket sized torch and targeted its beam at that side of my head and i could feel the warmth of the field. Needless to say i was surprised at this odd behaviour and my countenance made that fact clear to everyone who might have noted it,including her.

"Ohh..Did i alarm you?? Please don't be..I observe ears.I study them"

"So you are a doctor ??" I asked,not really convinced by her reasoning,albeit amiably.

"Ohh no..I'm not a doctor"
The situation could not have felt any stranger had she answered any differently. I was perplexed and intrigued at the same time.
"So what is so special about mine".I said in an attempt to slowly tax into the open mouth of this occasion that had suddenly opened up.

"The fact,that You don't have any"

My hands involuntarily reflected to feel the area of my head where they should have been. I could feel my frail skin and a very narrow hollow opening, impossible to penetrate with anything as thick as the human finger. I stroked around the sofa and my eyes widened with the shock of having made the discovery which came into being, only after i had registered recently with little attention a perfect pair of ears sideling my bony head.

"But ..How is it?? How can i hear you..??" My body was palpitating like the stomach of an old sailboat.

The woman clutched away from me the spoon in my hand and turning it upside down in hers scratched the wooden surface of the table with it's rear. I could hear nothing, "I can't hear anything" i agitated as i tried to jerk my head sideways , back and forth worriedly. I looked at her inquisitively as the collar of my shirt dampened slowly. The woman stood having drawn a pen from somewhere during all this commotion.

"Now would you please,if you do not mind move back a little" .She held my face from the chin and and forced it backwards to look at the ceiling at a certain obtuse angle,so a clearer view of my forehead would emerge,upon which she proceeded to write something with the pen. I was too gobsmacked and taken by the shock to do anything in reply or even guess by the tip of the pen as it slowly scraped against my skin,what she was trying to write. I kept looking at her face which showed the calm of a person averse to the recent history between us.

After having finished writing.she went back to her table without uttering a syllable. I got up from my chair and headed to the washroom area after having once noted swiftly that she was back in her booth,quiet and clothed by an impenetrable suit that i certainly did not know ways to buy.

I hurried to the lavatory and positioned myself opposite the mirror upon entering.

"Krrrrr.."

3:54 am

I can tell the tube-lights buzz,
 the ones shining in from the street
  overlooking my moving presence
 I can tell the ones that are quiet
    would want to remain so
   I understand their fear of engagement,
 for at this hour,only the dark exceeds
    and nothing should be alone,lit

I would want sleep to come to me as a pair of bubbles underwater,so i could forget drowning for a moment and breathe

"The Woods are our Sadness"

                  -Twin Peaks(A David Lynch production)

Preparation

 A select exultation,
   before an ageing elephant
 happens to be,
  how even the mountains
          look older in winter

Poem

And we stood transfixed,
   mortified by the unearthly sky
as down in the streets
   day and night passed each other
like a bunch of commoners
     having outlived their worth for family..

The ruins have changed..they have digital accounts and meander hopefully

The ruins engage me,for
  what am i but an empty needle
     to the shaken,
         as recluse as the hermit
who stands at the edge of the pier,
        and as close as the nearest
crack in the wood
        but all i know,all i could ever know
  about them
    is that they no longer
       speak the language i do.

Withdrawing money from the atm,6:43 am

   It strode with huge unwavering steps
       across the road,relativity
    some of it was in the air
        and i hoped it were a little true about everything,
         i put my jar inside a bigger one
      to try to save it from the
           street sound of nothingness

The General

"Only grief will live,Fear dies with me"
    the prisoner said,
  as behind his back,unknowingly
    a guard walked up
  to kick at the stump of steel
     jutting out of his right shoulder,
  The prisoner convulsed uncontrollably
      like a bird stuck in a clot of wires
    "Water..Water..Water..."
    He stuttered in an electronic voice
  "Get me some water.."
       The General said,looking at the guard
 as he stepped away
   from the fresh stream of blood
      that had made its way
    down the spine of the prisoner
       to the soiled floor
          "Water..Water....!!"
     The prisoner beeped,his voice
   lowering with his head,
       The General watched his head
     slowly dip to the floor,
         like a cube of ice
diving towards the bottom of a jug
     "Guard...Guard !!"
     "Sir .."
     "Water??..and give some to the other prisoners.."
     "Sir??"
      The guard's tone was inquisitive marked by an exasperated sigh at the sight of the prisoner
     "Only one has to die today..for the rest of them to know,that i can save them"
        The General rose to his feet,and looking at the latest heap of flesh he had seen turn dead
        he shook his head sideways,gently..
      "Grief lives only in hearts that do not fear,friend..Those who fear,will eventually have to hope..."
       He paused,as if for a second his brain had tossed itself inside his head as he whispered to himself
      trying to prevent it from scattering on the floor with other remains of the dead
    "And he did not fear....o lord and he did not fear..."
       The General drank from the glass in the hand of the guard  till it was empty and let out a meaty groan of tiredness as he walked out of the cell.After he left the guards unchained the dead mass to be fed to the furnace in the morning and sprayed the floor with water all night long.During this time they whispered among themselves" A wife..?? Yeahh i think she's his second..three kids ..oh yes he's the best..21 years ?? really ??..has a terrible laugh...this laugh ??..".As one of them gagged himself to make it look like a monkey choking under water,the sun had risen and the fire in the furnace had been lit.

6:07 am

Growth
1.
I'm not growing,
  my knowledge of percentages
    makes me calculate to little accuracy
  the worth of people,who in my corruptive
    imagination bury their dead
   in front of their houses

2.
The undertaker says
    he can write on water,
so i believe what he tells me
   and slowly cower back in

Foresight

Night falls,barking windows to all
   all life darkening or shut,
except one from behind which
   a child waves to me
       endlessly..

Asymptote

1.
Back in the day.
  It makes my head spin,
just saying that
   for i'm nothing like i was
 yesterday

 2.
   The old man
  who never sits alone
 in the evening,
    has been seen whispering
  to the tails of dogs

3
 And it was dusk,
   when the boy ducked
 under his mother's skirt
  and pulled on it fearfully until
it emerged along with her behind,
  that there was no heavy breath for him
    without pain.from then on
   he was led to believe
there are no dogs in the yard. 

Love before a poem

 Love before the poem,
    must mean getting to the point
       the point ??..Be water..not the eyes
   Have you searched inside the cases
      you carry everywhere,
            scratched them nude
    to their spines ..for
     it would be conveniently magical to find
   inside them,some rotten tongues

Two poems

Events are symbolic, 

  like a rabbit

lit by the lights 

    of a speeding car,
biting on a sunflower
    with his heart
 in his mouth..

   

the oddities of exchange
   can be measured,
in the deft kisses
   on an
 abnormal growth of skin..

Dreams catch on,
  as i go fleeting past
the casket of summaries

Men small enough to fly

 Have thoughts,
    like orphans
  stranded at the forthcoming..
    Have a heart
  unusual for its
     voice
   Have a song
 free
   of its instruments
   Have a wall
 but first have
    the will to demolish
  Have a lap
of victory
   just to be sure of your loss
  Have a little
breathlessness,
    all the time
  Have an opinion
in matters of
  life alone,
 Have a little rage,
  have a mirror it can't
    look away from
   Have a fight
  to win yourself
     a moment away..
   Have relativity
 to variaions
     in noise too
  Have a journey
marked not only,
     by its ends
  Have a morning
where you tell time by the hand
  that pulls you to your feet
  Have that thing
    what they call,try to call..
      never will be able to

 

"Applaud"

  To the stage gentlemen,
 yet the daylight moon
   shifts unnoticed
 
  to the rift in her tears
your hands meet to fill,yet
   midnight awaits each of you

  to the grand fall
 off the stage,only regardlessly
  consumed as disaster

  to the slow soundly admittance
 of the barbarian,dressed
   casually as you

  to the lone peanut
sitting at the window grill,
 every little parable attached
 
  to the air in the room
 sodden with breath,multiplied
   only by its size
 
  to the shudder of a heel
stuck in the wooden floor,oh the
  terrible outcomes of reach
 
  to the teary eyed blonde
in the front row,a row for gems
   the heart shaped ones
 
  to the white smoke,rising gradually
befitting the organics
   of the human mind
 
  to the colourless bangles
   sparingly hung over the light bulbs
  popping into everyone's mind as red and blue

  to the anemic commotion
backstage,the whispers of god
   probably not

  to the man cowered
behind the upright paper trees,
  sweating his anonymity

  to the sombre decline
in passing the end,
  between your fingers

  to the curtains
as they fall,
  reminding you of being taken

  to the spreading chorus
of the chairs' yawn
 mindless tricks that wriggle the soul....

A Rainy day

Remember the day,do you?
when it rained
bankrupting your legs
   of their balance,
 the sewers cheered as
    hundreds of bottle caps
 fell through,the bottles
    long overused
      stood beside you
  echoing your voice
     
there were colourless impressions
  of those who passed ahead
 for a moment or two
    in the puddles
before they
    broke into laughter,
   widening as the drops
fell harder
 
    and
   for a breathless minute,
you thought
  there was no returning today
    from the brink

Asymmetric

All be it limited,i follow the sand wherever it goes.I'm a dying wave of bleeding limbs flowing in
from the cloud coated feet of the sky.My hands can only feel human heads,some of them with notoriously blowing peevishly warm air into my trousers.I would stand up and zip myself but the moon is a moth journeying between holes,to me they meet between my legs.A cluster of trees turned inside out have knives sticking out of them,their backs pounded with a lot more than just empty shells,lucky they are.

 I'm a miser i must admit.So all i do in situations like these is hold my head between my knees and pull the shovel on every instinct that may surface from beneath my feet.I'm a ballerina bouncing over the dead with a sense of mortality climbing up my legs.To me that is how art should be.The hand may rise exhuming bits and pieces of creation,but what follows is the wait to settle.That itself can spell doom,although doom is spelled in a fairly straightforward way.I'm nobody to judge,atleast nothing other than the thoughts of the head hanging between my legs,not mine.

Sanctity of the machine

The terrible outcomes
  we wear,
 Reddened only for
   their lack of
     reason
     and
the blood we spit
 into our own machines

Sacred, yet spoken

The whole scribbling matter,I had nothing more to say to myself than i had to say to her.That in itself was more disappointing than the beguiling truth behind the withdrawal she led me into.A point between the recent past and today was where our defences should have met in argument.But we had thoroughly been at work,destroying each other's lives and unknowingly making it look simpler by the day.It is hard to accept diligence on part of another person when you are under the impression of being under an impression.What remained ineffaceably constant was the natural winding down of the clock everyday,down to the moment where the kiss goodnight could only leave us for saving.It was quite like holding that empty bottle jar quietly over a ledge in the quiet of the night,waiting for it to not fill with your own personal cause.

Sticks

Sticks for birth
  Clobber the
   midpiece
  into sight

Sticks for childhood
   also find the sun
 making an attempt
  to eat the other half
 
Sticks for youth
   In custody
  of the parantheses
 
Sticks for middle age
might as well
  try to
   climb them
 
Sticks for old age
   a bend in the back
     nearly epitomizes
   their existence
    within a hapless moment

Sticks for death
  A greased leg
    that won't burn
   because it rained
even though everyone cared

Sticks for the time being
  Your brain withstanding,
    we can recollect
life as something totally
     different

Past the Sanctum

From when it is mundanely cloudy,
  that long pause
of the balcony
   clinging all by itself
to the murmur
   of the passing wind...

       underlying
  concoctions to which
    my ears
 are as rhetorically irrelevant
   as licked spoons
 
   i stagger irretrievably
past,the usual
  scrimmage,about
 the infinitely heightening
     pleasures of
  watching the neighbour
   lady milk her tits...

Naught lessons for outerspace

 1
 for two hours,
  i sat staring through
the glass doors of the trains

 at people i had begun to believe had something
     to say to me,all of them
it was on their faces

   the tired expressions
 of having to ask

2
They seem disobedient
   to the principles of precint
little spaceless wonders
   where colossal mishaps
come wrapped in your own gum
  sticking to your shoe

3
"I've already asked three people"
she said to me,i wasn't even listening
but somehow i was accounted for among the three
I pointed her in the direction where she ought to have been going..
"You will never get over losing me",she stamped her message firmly across
as i took it on the chest as part of an emotional slide,
but really i was just glad i was going in the opposite direction today

4
By evening
   my study of her
  a conjecture she would agree upon


5 The Rajendra Place metro station(2010)

The beaded numbers illuminated
as announcements overlapped,
   stinging the ears unless three became one

 i felt my weight drop to the ground
as people gathered around
  a man in a wheelchair

Deposits

On a surprisingly warm sunny evening it rained cotton plugs around my ears

Philosophy is just a one eyed observer trying to guess what the other eye would see

I have imaginary wives whose imaginary friends imagine me differently

Are the stars,the moon a consolation for the earth hanging hopelessly alive in this universe..??

Never really trusted wise men,too many madmen owe them their business

A mirror reflects both ways,almost as accurately as a broken relationship

Consider the ambiance inside a train station as genetically driving your character and now consider it to be the truth.

By and by the number of things you wish for decreases.That is mathematically correct

Perhaps all birds migrate owing to disbelief.They return because we think they have choices

If the universe is one family,then nearly all the dead stars and planets will eventually come home to feast

Always remember, the underdog serviced your opinion

Every answer to any question is just a fact having given up on its legs

The significance of a crime is often valuated on the punishment,so is it merely an offering ?

A murderer most definitely has greater appreciation for his tools than he has for the victim

We lose most battles on the way back home

An argument has most certainly eluded to the smarter man

In a way ideas are brain sized explosions

The streets at 4 am in the morning is as close as we come to depriving ourselves of ourselves..

Did the first magic trick ever have an audience?

Atomicity in thought can be achieved by simply staring at a rock

Life most often can turn out to be an unfulfilling exercise for filling gaps

A slow unlearning of everything we wish to forget is a rare possibility

Defects in a judgement can only be identified once passed

It is the reticent attitude that never goes unnoticed

Accidents are sequential,they have to be

Talking about accidents.i'm losing more hair day by day

A whisper multiplied with itself can sound like utter nonsense..A scream however is the next closest thing to getting applauded for..

Talent is inborn,so are suicidal tendencies

The light bulb is probably the original daybreak-ing idea

On a cold winter evening,it seems the clouds gather outside my window looking for a shoulder

A lovelorn poet surely wants to be known as one

You can allegorize anything that a group of people are prepared to believe

Fantasies are hedonistic parables that ignore the trivial

Men are slaves to speech,the reason why kings master it

The most common sight is a curve

We are surely in the middle of our evolutionary cycle at all times,for it is impossible to collectively
go backwards or forward....

Poem

Here i sit
  waiting to write
one grand poem today,maybe two
  making it no pleasure of mine
in having to admit
   that i try really hard
   at times,only to be left
feeling like a rain soaked leaf
  dropping down a well

Tracing under the curve

Vishwa was his usual fighting self
 with one foot hanging outside the casket

I embarrassed myself
  standing without a pair of pants on
in Chandni Chowk,only to realize
  it took only one to sound
like several people laughing

I had not noticed the oddness
 of my fingers,until i pointed
  a burglar the other way

Fake orgasms,i just didn't know
 when they were not

A woman once looked at me
 as if separating us were
this pawns we had to let die
 to come together
and i did,each one of them

We did have kids,
  almost all of them
had names starting with the same letter

That letter to this day
  has never gained
 any momentum

so i did bury her, right beside the pawns

A bench on the other
 side of the road   wasn't too cold..
    it was visible


In my defence,your opinion never mattered

Birthday Wishes:Jack !

                                                          photo by Tom Palumbo,1956

Derive from life
Roads you'd rather be on,
and walk until they are,
what you believe in...

Ageing with policies

Can i hear myself age
to myself, i give that eared
piece of evidence ?

the crackling sounds
of unbolting bones,
as i knee the dead in

A museum of thought,
where on the wall
hang other walls

my erring admission to guilt
with which i may have been
caught living,not really

An egress to the place
where men are born
only superior to each other,

A slow recession,into the dark
receptive to which
i hear the world sulk,alone

i need margins,so i think

Poem

A mysterious bird
          throttling across the sky
   but the thoughtful hole
            inside your head
escaping
         your wordless curiosity

Love,cannibalism and momentary orgasms

Between the nutshell and a cosmic genius
made out of peach like skies,
the definition of love
fetches not only the moon
from millions of other poems
not only the fluence of
of the ocean crossing erased lines
not only the perpetual disgust
at shouldering each other to a still
not only the faith
in having to write one's own script
not only our soul hungry
conviction that we lead in examples by
not only our non-preference for facts
but merely advantages
not only the bodily translations
of our faith approaching justification
not only the exclusion
of your opinion from this rendition of mine
not only you,me and this world
sharing their unsolved equations
not only with the blind and deaf

A nub in the ocean,
the bald eagle
fails to fly away with

Poem

I can hear the world
ringing to itself
all those coins
in our pockets,and not
even a couple of them
one at a time
can stop an argument

Them by Anupam Kant Verma

Them

Oh, well, yes,
There are the damned
And then there are those
Who pull rivers
Out of the sky
Whose dogs go hungry
In their sleep
And, of course, those
Who walk into women
The way the blind
Walk into doors
Whose women
Walk out on them
The way only they can
Leaving behind
A scratch on the sofa
A panting door
And how could I forget those
Who sing underwater
Who sing in their sleep
Who sing when they fuck
Sing and sing and sing
And hum at funerals
And drown when they weep
Oh and those
Who swim in their breath
And chase stars
On moonlit ponds
With the swollen ends
Of their feet
Then there are always of that kind
Resembling old gloves
Torn by longing
Mended by fireflies
Worn by none
And last there are these
Only men
Who stare at turnstiles
Who stare at windows
Who stare at scarlet-burning lips
Stare at the dying
Stare at those aching to live
Stare at their own tears
Trembling on their palms
Who stare at leaping fish
And the drowning limb
Who stare and stare and stare
At their elbows
And staring they
Break into a dance
And just for a while
They forget the living
They forget all of us
And whirling and swirling
On their toes
They forget
The bulging bulbs
The needles
The haystacks
And panting and huffing
And puffing and sweating
They forget the names
Of the songs they never sang
They forget the lips, the hips,
The pinched cheeks the sunsets
Toenails thighs
Madly roving hands
Sandsunk feet
And as they come crashing
Down on the floor
Gasping for sober air
They forget this poem exists
They forget the dance
They forget they live.

Anupam K.


Anupam Kant Verma is a close friend,although that been said,we have never met in person.He shies away from sharing his work publicly and is defiant to the extent that he would have his poems live in reclusion just as himself.Being the decent friend i am i decided to rescue some of his work and as a near personal favour he let me post one of his finest works(personal opinion) which i've had the privilege to read.Bravo friend...

With no references to the moon at midnight

This robe and its colour
the misgiven indications
of,due information
The stars missing from being unknown
And the sky no longer will let me pluck
with certain forbidden word combinations
her soft bottom to sleep on,
In case of an impasse
i let my head hit the nearest object
just so i can feel the touch
whereas at other times
i'm as convincing as i may sound..

Happiness

Such great lies
about happiness
have already been said,
that i feel lost not
for words,
but listeners

Poem

Like a dreaded breeze
from the northern steppe
she floats over the moon palmed hedges
brushing my hands as if
gently needling me for blood,
as i wait in the backyard
for the tourniquet to loosen,
her balmy touch affix my broken sleep
and feel the night begin
to settle on my dried tongue

Free mornings

Winter morning,
   how else
would i be free
  other than
this thing having
  acquainted
but not denied me
   anything yet

2 penny for light

i'm tilted to myself,being part of a world perfectly capable of being set in the right place.A light from something as immense as the Stupa of Ashoka himself passes under my belly.It is a titillating feeling like being a giant space gong oscillating between the black and white towns of worship.Her steps are slow,disavowing the faults of sight.She scintillates and leaves my arms spasming in opposite directions with the wind lifting me under my arms.The world it seems is just a birthstone hanging by her hips which move in ways that various ringing sounds emerge within the mind and eventually bend over with nothing but a weep in awe.It is close to this point that i confess being in love with myself and her creations,but she engages me thoroughly.I'm alert to her movements just as she is to my innocence.

I suspect there is a shrill voice delivering intuitions from a very large book written a long time ago