9/22/2016 1 Comment Four Poems by Sudhanshu ChopraImperfecto I'm such a fatso, she said You won't be able to wrap around me It doesn't matter, he said I will wear foam fingers then or hug you in half It can be um, a funny mime, tree hugging, glaze of barnacle on the whale or simply a brush of shoulders; Viscosity of eyes, elements around forgotten Ripples of fragrance will unravel me I'm the thread I was holding onto from open fields of stench that tear me to the marrow Now no more the muffling blimp in sea of quagmire as unclipped bun on your head rebounds, sprinkles dust and shampoo into my nose The smudges of paint from turning pages of the book I told you to read form on your nails maps of unknown nations l will visit while crawling through reams of paper at work Continents dipped in puddles of your tears for I don't want to be drenched in the rain What do you think, she asked will all of this sound amusing It will, he said when I murmur it in your ear Bloody Semantics Little ticker came to me and burst His castle of bullets had been pillaged again It was the tank, again Such a bully he is, spoke little ticker, Strutting with his fancy shells My little pellets stand no chance I spend hours collecting them from sand, orchards behind the boulders, underneath rubble even in the spooky caves Separate silver from the auburn from the charred red, and arrange layer over layer, wide ones below, narrow stand above them in an inverted v for vendetta Over days, protect them from slight of wind, sleep by at nights to keep mischievous magazines away And what fine ramparts I build around, gun powder baked in earth But he crushes them As I cradle little ticker I think how flesh, bones, molecules are such scam, tears, smiles beguiling semblance People, things, feelings are but words, words perpetual, true to surroundings, born out of them The name calling, it does not end with school, just changes like air at altitude I think of the time when my valley* was not in crosshairs Alleged theocracy and brute protectors did not bid for it with arms, and infect our vocabulary, our voice, us When sand castles were called sand castles Pebbles, not pellets, art dancing on them in rainbow colours, were foraged from diverse bounds, stacked in smooth shapes, and hedges of friendly bushes planted in fertile earth around; only for the pieces of engineering to be razed, with blows of feet, by big boys and their obedient goblins, who were not called tanks Hearts would slip on graceful women, sinful kalshnikovs, eagles not ousted by snipers young men would not recover from interviews to find interrogation fashionable, just like grill would mean some scrumptious Sunday barbecue, in place of guys in coats questioning retired fathers And little boys, not tickers, would run crying to their elder brothers, the hand grenades. *The valley of Kashmir, India, torn between military and militants. Detour When grapes fall on footsteps do they become fruit-steps? that go about little and tipsy in helicopter boots breathing pixie dust and follow crinkle of gregarious leaves, silent autumn drops, or simply the whiff of ash from a burned pile that traces contours of nests, landmarks to life that dwells in them too as they take a walk, hand in hand His first forest Her first flower Coup Status quo held me to the wall sagging and offered me the lollipop of lethargy which I'm not sure why I accepted, as slumber sniggered to see its conspiracy work out in size of cantaloupe colour of apples endurance of packaged food and from which, energy for shiny words, glittering sentences, intellectual discussions arose packed in bright couture Hope, on the other hand, was different I thought I had left her pondering with my charm But she was already beyond the line, her imagination running wild Bio: Sudhanshu Chopra hails from India. He finds inspiration to write from observations, memories, subconscious, books he reads, movies he watches, and music he listens to. Sometimes a phrase or simply a word is enough.
1 Comment
Don Fredgant
9/22/2016 10:03:15 am
Observant, playful-yet-cringing gestures of familiarity with the world around him.
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