on the night of our first encounter you gave me a kiss not on my cheeks or my hand or lips you kissed me on my wrist I frowned as you...

A still from the film Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky surely, the earth is a wicked old woman who steals stainless steel bones to bury it...

Three women by Amrita Shergill There is moss making love in graveyards. Last night I showed up there with a bottle of old monk to speak...

Writer’s block: the absence of a poem The absence of a poem sticks in the underbelly of your fingers- fingers who don’t recognise each...

Girl Reading, Vase of Flowers, 1922 – Henri Matisse My poem is lactose-intolerant. It’s a baker allergic to flour, A depressed comedian,...

Fluidity IV by Shirley Novak There are caterpillars in my mother’s gajra crawling towards her ears while all she feels are my dad’s iron...

Absence of Sound by STACY DAGUIAR Ask my name and I’ll utter a thousand words that only sound like it. “Do what is necessary,” they say...

Sad man by Prisac Nicolae Troubled young boys grow up to be stiff and steadfast gentlemen Wearing suits and ties and combing their hair...

George Frederick Watts, Found Drowned, c. 1850, oil on canvas, Watts Gallery, Compton I am addicted to grief- It’s not that I can’t do...

POSTCARDS / STEPHEN PUTNAM HUGHES AND EMILY ROSE STEVENSON The morning newspaper stretches its wearied arms between my fingers and...

Hiba Schahbaz’s Self Portrait / Weighing a girl Every day when the sun hides behind trees A girl rides past my house I look at her...

Girl Floating in Water by Ophelia i am a gunshot wound. two tablespoons of Rooh Afza does not calm me, it either lights me up like Wills...

Displaced Afghani Children at a refugee camp in Kabul / Photograph by Haroon Sabawoon In the playgrounds of tomorrow, happiness bleeds...

La Muse by Pablo Picasso “Talk to me about the poem you wrote to pass the unbearable. Tell me why you prefer the second generation of...

In my house, rooms are claimed in the name of things rather than people- sandook room, almirah room, AC room, mandir room- a steady...

Tired of writing poems of defiance Those that reek of blasphemy and fire Read aloud in a voice refusing to crack Here I shall not rebel...

There is a kid somewhere in the world, who feels guilty for sleeping, without feeding the doll. And there is this girl, who talks to a...

Soap Bubble Large Wabbelig Huge I. My god breathes in the smoke of a thousand incense And breathes out security That mothers with...

My mother asks me why do I ⁣ Give my poems names ⁣ Like wheelchair, a crutch, ⁣ an inhaler⁣ A one bedroom beating heart⁣ Why can’t i call...

So much of love is lost in translations. it spills out by the time it travels from one human to another. for the man at the subway has no...