Beneath the trees
that once nurtured me,
I oversee the valleys.
The Fog descends slowly
like a veil to guard
the modesty of untouched lands
Come morning,
the shimmering sunlight
shall remove the veil
with yellow bright
kisses; lakes and seas
shall mirror the coquettishness
in the blues.
Nature’s unapologetic love
brews in the unseen seasons,
un-noticed somehow.
at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god, they must think I love this like the others
but it’s for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I’m tense lousy feel bad
poor people, I’m failing I’m failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a dirty poem
somebody told me not to read dirty poems
here
it’s too late.
my eyes can’t see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can’t hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that’s it, I’m
finished.
and later in my room
there is scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since become tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.
my existence floats
in a boat made up of dreams
over the turbulent seas of death.
the illusion of a charade.
the night’s scythe
cleaves my head:
blood with a famine of words
splatter all over the dusty bed-sheets.
The crucifixion of lies.
the boat trembles, seas rage.
With bleeding toes, my existence
inches towards the edges of insanity
laughing like a suicidal dog with
a growing distaste for chewed bones.
The Paradox of suffering.
I wait for an unheard laughter,
for the air to caress the wind chimes again.
It will all be over soon.
More the blood loss, deeper the ink to write with.
Don’t you think?
© Shashank Bhardwaj
The storm and its climatic gore
shatters the neatly arranged
chateau glasses and spills
the well-loved Bordeaux’61
all over the floor.
That night, I sipped the lightning
and smelled the wine for the first time.
A sweet and pungent memory
with a taste too bright for a 7-yr old.
like venomous snakes
let us shed our afterlives
on the floors of past
to swim in the dark futures
unseen,untouched,unashamed.
A Tanka is a Japanese form of poetry that has a Syllable structure of 5/7/5/7/7 over the course of a single line with breaks.
Our goodbyes deserve an absence of light
as the eyes never learn to forget,
leave me slowly if you wish tonight
as the quietest tide consumed by night
we shall meet again in the warms rains of regret.
Our goodbyes deserve an absence of light.
This sleep shall disappear in this Stardust, pure white.
as memories burn in broken mirrors with cigarettes.
Leave me slowly, if you wish tonight
as the colors do, in the hues of black and white.
We shall meet again in the rainbows and colorful silhouettes.
Our goodbyes deserve an absence of light.
The warmth shall dissolve in the impending frostbite
as we dream of beautiful icicles in cold sweat.
Leave me slowly, if you wish tonight
but as an image disappearing into the night
we shall meet again in the destined afterlives.
Our goodbyes tonight deserve an absence of light.
Leave me slowly, if you wish tonight
© Shashank Bhardwaj
Rules of Writing a Villanelle – Villanelle Rules
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the rancor from the relishes reverberates with rage.
serenity seeps slowly into the sleep of sensuality:
as I tickle the tenacious thighs and think of tricks.
the universality of the urges shall not be undone.
the vagrancy within myself will end vividly.
our acts are now xeroxed, the near x-mas forgotten
the youthful yumminess of the yesteryear revisited.
Writings to Heaven 