Poetry

The Morning Chorus,Buner, Khyber Pakhtun Khwa, Pakistan The lazy sun stretches across the skyAnd with it rises a haze of wood smokeThroughout the mountain valleyThe chorus of the world wakingUshers us into a new day The lowing of cows laden with milkSteady

A girl-child in a man’s worldBorn of the same lineageBut lower-birthed. A free spirit – a little fighterLouder, faster, bolderIn spite of being the ‘weaker’ gender. Not less lovedBut lower-rankedAnd always a bit outmanned. Not less specialBut never firstAlways just second or

Full inbox…how does the moon lightthe Earth in one night? Tangled morning moonthrough my sour-cherry blossoms…another woman breastfeeding Forest deepens…untangling my daughter curly hairwith argan oil First moon beams…the lotus sinksinto its past Aurora…God stirs the whole skywith a finger A swan

I hang white sheets,never crispsomehow wrinkledlike my crow’s feet,forehead,around my lips,crinkle on my nose,below my eyes,no matter how I try to iron,cleanse, tone, moisturise,the folds come back. White swaddles, burp cloths,become beige,sand,hessian,almond.Almond eyes.Get the colourout.I tie the burp cloths together,plan my escape.

You smell of forgotten woollensstuffed in old closets, five roundsof radioiodine nearly scrubbing outyour inherent talcum scent,no more than a whiff of a life that was.I whisper-shout toward rowsof sterile doors, visits fromthree feet apart (prison or recovery),hoping my voice breaches the

I remember the game of knuckles we used to play as kids in the dirt lanebehind the old storage sheds, corrugated rooves lined with squished flesh of fermenting persimmons. I found it unsettling the way we keptdisembodied knuckles rattling around inside old

A round steel thali winks at me as steam arises from a bowlof curry, a stick of cinnamon floats like driftwood seekingwelcoming shores. Little fingers trace the faint etchings of a name engraved lovingly by a twice removed aunt. A pigeonwith eyes

I hope I find enough courage somedayTo tell the world or at least the people that care about meThat;I love the darkness but I fear daylight the most,Not like others, I hate sunsets just as much as I hate goodbyes,I hate loud

A Tanka Sequence Prayingall day & all nightto Godnever questioning whycancer invaded my life until the doctortells me what stage canceri have, my fearswill hang like dewdropson a bleeding heart pale gray cloudsacross the morning stari gatherstrength & couragefor my first chemo

I don’t remember my first English wordbut I remember all the Khmer-dubbed Thai moviesthat raised me in the living roomover the hum of sewing machines from the garage.Not a word of English was uttered in my homeexcept for MJ, Madonna and INXS.I

I amthe bowerbird of flameentranced by the rainforest almost indecent, you see beyond skindeeper than marrowdeeper in ghost laway strings let me nestle in your lung’s capillariestuck me in to your grey matter,I’ll make myself at home drink deepfrom the pulse of

A thundery, lightning struck, rainy evening. Water flowing from everywhere; the skies, water rankling the asbestos roofs of houses and pouring onto the streets, the gutters, the drains, the potholes on the roads …. And in that loud, furious melee, I spot

Our dream trains conjure up faces— known, unknown. You half-recognise a tired mother; I sneer at my drunk uncle who never got to the other side of his third marriage. We pack our dream trains with all we’ve come through. There’s another,

J, I can’t bear to spell out your name. I see you clearly, even now.Dark, pimple scarred, a smooth voice.You were a neighbour, my Godmother’s brother.About the same age as my uncles.But unlike them. I remember the day at WT.You chose to

Lithesome young Gem, her father’s precious lass,born to a family of homely, motherless boys,Endowed with dower of house and jewelsMarried to the first Frankie that pled her troth A jewel of a mother, she bred a brood of threeA son turned preacher,

We lived in Shivaji Park when I first askedmy parents about Santa—because he brought presents, and my picture books showed him flying—in a sleigh drawn by reindeer over fields and mountains of snow in cold countries where white people livedin huge houses

I had not realisedHands and fingers could be so smallSo pink and crinkly, nails and allA little tiny human beingComplete, perfectExcept that you were notI could not hearI did not want to knowThe complicated diagnosisThey were pressing in upon usI’d never heard

In realms obscure, ‘latrine cleaner’ she was named,Love’s tender touch, a stranger’s hand, never claimed.her essence distilled in allure’s potent brew,A deity of desire, in eyes that only knew. Oh, Thangamma, your tale unfolds,beyond the verse of poets renowned,muted whispers, stories untold,in

Day folds into nightshe holds herself stillthe sharp angular linesof his cheekbones and the fire flares in the hearth –orange-tinged blue flameshis temper burning fast and hotlike the gidgee wood he mills. don’t pull that sullen face sonbeware his mood…Mother and sonwait…for

To the world the wounds have healedthe scars faded, invisible.Yet all it takesare carelessly spoken wordsor random, fleeting thoughtsfor the hurt to surface.The wounds bleed invisible dropsthe anguish swirling like a black cloud,surrounds the self.The bright smilethe calm demeanourbelie the echo of

Disconcerted and chagrined,I entwine my fingers tighter around you,glancing from the corner of my eye,a detective of the heart,probing through a maze of veiled secrets—but not to find love,Oh, not now!I eschew discovering it,here and now.I turn my gaze to the other

I sleep miles away from the landCalled Holy;The people are not mine yetThe pain is,The homes are not mineYet the dust is,The blood is not mine yetTheir Death is.Chalks are drawing the borders,Marking the dead bodies scattered around the dustThat was once

This old palm leaf tells us children some stories of her time to put us to sleepAbout how she discovered her childhood in watchingHer mother making paper sweets,home filled every day with sharp sun light on the mother’s eager hands, the sheets

The smell of chai filled up my apartment when I used to wake up, once. I do not remember how long it has been. Two years, probably five. It’s been six months. I walk through the pavements alongside the palm trees. This

All my anxieties…About did I leave the stove on!Or maybe the keys hangingStuck to the outside of the door,instead of the lining of my pockets. Maybe all my worries…about how dreadful the world is going toTurn outare simply attemptsto come home. Time

My mother—in her heyday—had been quitea looker. Pretty enough to have been a Bond girl, framedin a sniper’s scope, I mused to myself. As a teen, thumbing through plastic sleeved albums (eight curved-edge photographs to a double page spread, fizzing lightly with

You wouldn’t know how it feels, would you?To love a man who’s claimed by many.Who am I but just another woman,lost in a throng of admirers waitingfor a glimpse of his dark, dimpled face.Tell me something, have you ever knownthe fear of

Inspired by Ada Limon Swell like a river.Expand as if your skin isn’t impressive enough already.Pure expression of the body and soul should never be anemic. Don’t tally your uncertainties, showcase your fearslike a movie on repeat. Your skin folds aren’t hiding

I hear mothers,young and old,rich and not-so-poor,Believers, atheists, heathenI hear their staggering stepszigzagging throughformer husbands,current flings,the faltering economy.I hear their symphonies–son’s first tooth fall,daughter’s first ballet,first culinary experiment.I hear, too, their erratic quartets;custody battles,nursing a sick child,telling the daughterbetter loversawait her yet.As

Astir, nightly shows—orchestras of vehicles playthe chords in the streets. True-blue tea-lovers—drinking views with samosas,English coffeehouse. Glistening at daytime—dainty neighbourhoods bask insoft showers of peace. Taking in the town—orange sun ducks behind askyline of jet trees.

lost this moonless nightwithout a starry guidewhere the black dog herdsand the midnight cat’s clawsclick across weary stones.lost where whiteno longer exists.gloom’s black fingerscurl and stretchscratching away layers,the regrets and misstepsuntil my noh mask slipsand I am undone

If she gets sometimes offOpens the portfolio from her voice and singsChildren cry for attention or quarrel over shabby rags or iron blade or broken plastic lid.This is the only time she wipes off whiskey stainse-liquid drip in her mist like songs.Frantic

It used to be alert to threats, waiting on the back porch, ready to run at the first whiff of smoke. The eyes sense it first: the sting from ghosts poking needles in my eye, blinking at betrayal like voodoo dolls that

It was a summer, Mason knew, when things were suddenly gone. In the midst of a drought, hundreds of thousands of dead fish in the Murray Basin and no one knew why. Mass fish kill, they called it. A third of Australia’s

As she sat down and spread outthe old picture album,all the moments and kinfolkslivened up around herwith all those smiles and tearsand those hugs and gigglesthose partings and unionswhirling around herin a cloud of smokeand faint echoes from afar.Like how she beheld

love can find us even when we are not lookingfor it, in the most fortuitous place with the mostunexpected person & at the most inconvenient time.as the waning days & nights of our lives are slowlysettling in around our aging bodies &

I acquired these fears perhapsfrom dreaming too much, from floating above my headin a state of child-hooded fugue. The fear of falling down backwards while trudging up the stairs at 6 pm– an hour to go before the parental units arrive.My legs

If I could pluck yellow petals swaying casually on a field of Mars if I could tally Vincent’s stars record their names in coloured chalk on newly laid pavers beneath unshod feet would you hold this fragile me gently, your arms soft

Answer me!Where would you go?,when the very life you chase,Suddenly… betrayed you? On the roads you used to run on,now you can’t take a step.The hospital bed is your home now,The window; your eyes to the world. Can’t you see it yet?The

and as I took the blade to my foot,I never meant to make a cut deep enoughfor my blood to flow as freely as it did.And as I sat there for half an hour drenchingbits of cotton, all I could think about

Haiga is a traditional Japanese art form that combines haiku poetry with a complementary visual element, usually a simple painting or a sketch. The word “haiga” is derived from “hai” (haiku) and “ga” (painting or picture). In haiga, the aim is to

Twenty years down the lanecobwebs wrapped in my tonguered broken nails gnawing atthe sylvan table, the pressure cookerwhistles, the fading black ink of the recipe book spites at me, scratching the metaphors sealing my white lipswater bickering down the sink, flushing away

All the flashbacks have echoes, the running feet, the stampede untold, my veins bleeding with punch rush as I sit between your legs,The blonde streak and the green shirt, my pinks and your fences.You won’t be home in Spring, they think I

Flying I felt the Spring breezeSaw some lilies dancing roundWhile I touched the sky. On Growing Just like a saplingNeeds the sun, so do I needThe rain to grow high. Strength To smile is a costTo weep comes easily stillBut both make

On some nights, walking along thedeserted streets, grief chokes me likethunder that ravishes the sky.The lonely clouds gather aroundmy windowpane like a widowClad in white, sobbing rains into my heart.The moon is lost in the elegies of the night.In the eternal silence,

I refuse to be confined within the defined walls of identity.I don’t want these predetermined labels to define.The claustrophobia in my head space remains a massive threat.Always urging me towards the uncharted territories of freedom.Where authenticity thrives without the shackles of conformity.In

Let me fetch the courage to live,From the well on the outskirts of my city,Where the forest casts its long shadows,When the night spreads her soft velvet cloak Let me fetch the strength from its depthsTo not give up on myself right

I want to tell you,How much I have suffered.How much I have endured.Will YOU listen to me?I saw her drinking vials of tears every day,With blood dripping from her forehead,And bruises on her body.He ripped off her hair,Still, she didn’t utter a

It was a usual day,Morning brought the cuckoo callAnd your temple broke itself For a while, it made me thinkHow far you had walked for this thingHow many hours it took you to bring this homeTo you, to me, to usAnd then

I long for a home that never was– HiraethHere I am again with a glass shard in handWishing to walk on a painless pathAt the end of this torturous road lies a home. Right? Her voice in me saysHis shoe crushing your

Slid past the scarlet driveanchored on days sanewith a whimsical strain of melody sadharbouring the mind. Lovely sights of days wildgathered on follicles of growthentailing prophesyamidst seasons of hope. Majestic pride overweening:huddled the Self and Souldragging drudgery to the holereadily buried in

Renounce, renounce and renounce!All that makes me feellike a frantic caged bird,fluttering and shriekingfor escape —— from the morselsIt feeds upon,from its own filththat pollutes the cage,and from the gentle breezethat mockingly caresses its trapped wings!

I didn’t know what decade meantthe year I turned ten. The yearI turned ten, we moved housesand went from two rooms on anupper floor to three rooms onthe ground. I had only just learnedwhat one’s own house meant. Knowing this meant little.The

Today, in a meetingOne of my colleaguesWas euphemistic ofHer non-diplomacy; initiallyI was astounded, awestruck!With the flatteryBut it was no puffery.The expression came naturally.Not being euphemistic,The kudos was for a fighter,In a society whereWomen are harassedBy raping gazeAs a sex toy, andThe only

It is Always the Same Sunless Season HereBlack, overhanging clouds growl and smotherNot one piercing ray of lightThe silent river is desperate for a gleam,The lake beyond craves just a sparkle of lightA dance of sunbeams, just snatches stolen awayThe leafless trees

If I’m honest, I downplayed my beauty as generic asian features to try and dissipate some confused expressions at a spin-the-winebag-on-the-Hills-Hoist-party If I’m honest, I have goldfish lips and matching protruding eyes. I see men wave with zealous shouts of nihao and I always