The Husband’s Black Hands by Mallika Sengupta
The moment she tucks in the mosquito net and goes to bed, her husband’s black hands fumble after the snakes and frogs of her body: “You’re hurting me! Let go!” In anger, those black hands twist her breasts. He says, “Listen here, Sweta, don’t be coy. If ever I find even the evening star gesturing […]
Sonnet V by Mahmoud Darwish
I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle and, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches so I carry faraway’s land and it carries me on travel’s road On a mare made of your virtues, my soul […]
Snake Pit by Muralidharan Mudaliar
A snake pit In bits and pieces And phases and leases You Reveal its hem and hilt Its frills and fancies Soft folds and ( dark) peaks Its wet crevices Its secret passages And honeyed recesses Later late and wise Deep deep down Among shriveled folds I realize I am stuck To wallow in this […]
Eucalyptus Grove, morning by Neal Dachstadter
Eucalyptus Grove, morning by Neal Dachstadter Eucalyptus Grove, morning Quiet Eucalyptus Grove In the shallows Of the cove Root and trunk and branches wove ‘Mid a muddy treasure trove. Well – appointed campus lake; Wealthy waters, rich to slake Duck and egret, fish and snake. Silent Eucalyptus brake! Peaceful while thy land was French Peaceful […]
The Woman From The Archive by Nijole Miliauskaite
a woman of indeterminate age in the fading light hands folded on her lap those same days those same faces a current carried on and on hair full of archival dust dishevelled, calligraphic writing, deeply hidden sadness on the window a bouquet of dried meadow flowers, barely fragrant in the fading light you turn and […]
Rainy Day by Nikhil Jain
On one morning, As it was raining, While the drops and road were chattering, But I was only wandering, Walking on the foot, Since Sadness was only the root, But the blessings falling from heaven, Make me feel so even, So many puddles on the road, Some so narrow and some so broad, The path […]
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered […]
From: The Home We Will Never Live In That Place by Nijole Miliauskaite
that place, where one spring we saw a grass snake – greenish gold where a forest stream curled around a meadow, laughing; fallen trees lay rotting, not touched by anyone so warm and green that place, where for the first time, I saw a grass snake – his gold crown all that is gone now […]
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered […]
The Gardener LXXXIII: She Dwelt on the Hillside by Rabindranath Tagore
of a maize-field, near the spring that flows in laughing rills through the solemn shadows of ancient trees. The women came there to fill their jars, and travellers would sit there to rest and talk. She worked and dreamed daily to the tune of the bubbling stream. One evening the stranger came down from the […]
Paul’s Wife by Robert Frost
To drive Paul out of any lumber camp All that was needed was to say to him, “How is the wife, Paul?”–and he’d disappear. Some said it was because be bad no wife, And hated to be twitted on the subject; Others because he’d come within a day Or so of having one, and then […]
Mowing by Robert Frost
There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound– And that was why it whispered and did […]
Bishop Blougram’s Apology by Robert Browning
NO more wine? then we’ll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, though: cool, i’ faith! We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. It’s different, preaching in basilicas, And doing duty in some masterpiece Like this of brother Pugin’s, bless his heart! I doubt if they’re half baked, those chalk […]
An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar by Robert Browning
Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs, The not-incurious in God’s handiwork (This man’s-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man’s soul) –To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what […]
The Last Rhyme of True Thomas by Rudyard Kipling
The King has called for priest and cup, The King has taken spur and blade To dub True Thomas a belted knight, And all for the sake o’ the songs he made. They have sought him high, they have sought him low, They have sought him over down and lea; They have found him by […]
The Gipsy Trail by Rudyard Kipling
The white moth to the closing bine, The bee to the opened clover, And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood Ever the wide world over. Ever the wide world over, lass, Ever the trail held true, Over the world and under the world, And back at the last to you. Out of the dark […]
The English Flag by Rudyard Kipling
Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack, remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident. — DAILY PAPERS. Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro — And what […]
The Deep-Sea Cables by Rudyard Kipling
The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar — Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are. There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep. Here in […]
Oonts by Rudyard Kipling
Wot makes the soldier’s ‘eart to penk, wot makes ‘im to perspire? It isn’t standin’ up to charge nor lyin’ down to fire; But it’s everlastin’ waitin’ on a everlastin’ road For the commissariat camel an’ ‘is commissariat load. O the oont*, O the oont, O the commissariat oont! With ‘is silly neck a-bobbin’ like […]
Mowgli’s Song Against People by Rudyard Kipling
I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines– I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines! The roofs shall fade before it, The house-beams shall fall; And the Karela,. the bitter Karela, Shall cover it all! In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing. In the doors of […]
Mowgli’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
The Song of Mowgli — I, Mowgli, am singing. Let the jungle listen to the things I have done. Shere Khan said he would kill — would kill! At the gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the Frog! He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for when wilt thou drink again? […]
L’Envoi by Rudyard Kipling
There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, And the ricks stand gray to the sun, Singing: — “Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover, And your English summer’s done.” You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind, And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; […]
In the Matter of One Compass by Rudyard Kipling
When, foot to wheel and back to wind, The helmsman dare not look behind, But hears beyond his compass-light, The blind bow thunder through the night, And, like a harpstring ere it snaps, The rigging sing beneath the caps; Above the shriek of storm in sail Or rattle of the blocks blown free, Set for […]
The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart; the secret thoughts he harbored against me I also perceived. His dog bit my foot, he showed me much injustice; I do not bite him like a dog, I have bitten my own lip. Since I have penetrated into the secrets of individuals like […]
Lord, what a Beloved is mine! by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess in my breast a hundred meadows from his reed. When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me, he says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.” Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The moon […]
Last night my soul cried O exalted sphere of Heaven by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Last night my soul cried, “O exalted sphere of Heaven, you hang indeed inverted, with flames in your belly. “Without sin and crime, eternally revolving upon your body in its complaining is the indigo of mourning; “Now happy, now unhappy, like Abraham in the fire; at once king and beggar like Ebrahim-e Adham. “In your […]
Man in a Window by Ralph Angel
Man in a Window by Ralph Angel I don’t know man trust is a precious thing a kind of humility Offer it to a snake and get repaid with humiliation Luckily friends rally to my spiritual defense I think they’re reminding me I mean it’s important to me it’s important to me so I leave […]
On The Menu by Graham Rowlands
I’ll eat anything. I mean it. But don’t say you won’t have lunch with me. I won’t drink the soup. I’ll even try your wine in case someone’s trying to poison you— or us. Still, I warn you I’ve eaten an evolution of white bait oysters, prawns in their shells baby octopuses, squid, shark. I’d […]
Kiss by Ruth Padel
Kiss by Ruth Padel He’s gone. She can’t believe it, can’t go on. She’s going to give up painting. So she paints Her final canvas, total-turn-off Black. One long Obsidian goodbye. A charcoal-burner’s Smirnoff, The mirror of Loch Ness Reflecting the monster back to its own eye. But something’s wrong. Those mad Black-body particles don’t […]
A Schoolyard Shame by Ryan Isaacson
A Schoolyard Shame by Ryan Isaacson Teenage boys, a savage pack. Jay yelled out, a sudden smack. A clod of dirt had hit his back, Disintegrated with a thwack. A coward’s plan, surprise attack. They hit him in the back. Another clod, this made of mud, Struck his chest with deadened thud. Then all at […]
Christabel by Samuel Coleridge
PART I ‘Tis the middle of night by the castle clock And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the […]
The Wanderer by Sara Teasdale
I saw the sunset-colored sands, The Nile, like flowing fire between, Where Ramses stares forth serene And ammon’s heavy temple stands. I saw the rocks where long ago, Above the sea that cries and breaks, Bright Perseus with Medusa’s snakes Set free the maiden white like snow. And many skies have covered me, And many […]
The Snake Charmer by Sarojini Naidu
In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume, Where the clustering keovas guard the squirrel’s slumber, Where the deep woods glimmer with the jasmine’s bloom? I’ll feed thee, O beloved, on milk and wild red honey, I’ll bear thee in a basket of rushes, green and white, To a palace-bower where golden-vested maidens Thread with mellow laughter […]
VERY DISTURBING by Satish Verma
Rains will not come to my land. Bisexuality starts a slut walk. Blackbucks were hungry. The stray dogs were barking at moon. Into the night goes the snake without any truth. Nearly over the scooped – protection of virginity against the dazzling hirsutism. Lost fortune of the flaunted Buddha. I have no legs to bow down before the pale god. This is the […]
Vaulting by Satish Verma
Deep inside there was a simian jealousy. The opaque words will raise a burnt-out storm – returning the whole family of white flowers to the moon. The falling inside the bowl before the snake could strike interrupting the dead soldiers of unknown war- weapon-free. A stunning invasion of the spoons in summer months, when sweat was expensive than truth and a sentence was lost between the punctuations. Yet I […]
TRANSPARENCY by Satish Verma
He wants- to sort through the voices he used to hear- in his head, to understand the vexed past. He will make his bent arm a bow and shoot a moon between the doors. Walk with a snake in grass and feed his children. Irreverence becomes an import from the strangers. When you were burning inside, what was the need for the family of periwinkles to condole […]
SNAKE CHARMING by Satish Verma
The occult was scrounging in stringent way to resurrect the past. No answer. There will never be an answer. Where questions stand an answer was not there. Acquittal in setting sun. Endless love making had passed with the moon. We will not- recreate the bronzed body. Night, curse and a tale of purple, pink horse, accepting a libation for the penile god. A savior […]
REVOLT OF A SUTRA by Satish Verma
Spooked by a two headed snake, a double of a living person squirms. A moral crisis comes out of a cage. The private space is violated and bloodbath of robins start- to understand the unrest. Antimatter will keep the mystery alive. A distorted truth falls in your lap like a figurine asking your pardon. The dogma lies in mess. Chronology moves forward for future […]
Lying on a Slab by Satish Verma
Belly crawl after a dance. Carnivores were ready to jump on flesh. That underground beauty still believes in battle of flowers – skirting the hills. I am at loss of words, to describe the burial – of a strongman. Misreading a child god, he still posits a human clause. Darkness challenges the rival. Death for a believer of a spiteful cult. Into the hole, a […]
Lying on a Slab by Satish Verma
Belly crawl after a dance. Carnivores were ready to jump on flesh. That underground beauty still believes in battle of flowers – skirting the hills. I am at loss of words, to describe the burial – of a strongman. Misreading a child god, he still posits a human clause. Darkness challenges the rival. Death for a believer of a spiteful cult. Into the hole, a […]