In this beautiful poem by Rajani Radhakrishnan, a city becomes a woman.
Category: Uncategorized
Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?
Another wonderful poem by my friend Rajani Radhakrishnan. Instead of reblogging it from her website, I put it here so you could read it uninterrupted. Please leave comments on her site and look around while you’re there. She writes beautiful poetry.
Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?
There the universe stores vats of virgin happiness, doling
it out like a grim faced Scrooge, while we wait, bowl in
hand, wanting more. Always wanting more. We are made
of longing and hunger. And everywhere we look, is a giant
supermarket feeding that emptiness. Everything in excess,
marked down, on luscious display, the seed of the first apple
feverishly multiplying on every shelf of every aisle and our
hands reaching constantly to fill the ever growing void. Except
for happiness. For that, there is a line and a quota and a price.
We pretend not to see each other. Who will admit to such
privation? We study the signs from a distance. Perhaps, it
is another sorrow, another wound, another word that brings
you here. Does my skin turn transparent as I stand? Do you know
the scars inside? You will not turn your head. I will not call. How
much longer? Who hoards rain clouds in the desert? No one
warned me to save my smile. To save the light in your eyes.
– Rajani Radhakrishnan
Rajani’s website
Home
Late afternoon in the valley, the trees
wear halos. Then twilight steals the sun,
kitchen lights blink on like stars,
and coming home is a sigh
and the smile of someone waiting.
Your day is told in half sentences
and nods and questions answered —
nothing new, but new enough to tell again.
After supper, after gin rummy and pages
turning and the rhythmic click of a sweater
growing row by row, bed greets you
like a childhood friend, and sleep
keeps company with the blue black sky
and the owl’s whispered flight.
– Sarah Russell
First published by Your Daily Poem
The Way
Another beautiful poem from Rajani Radhakrishnan. Her lyricism and imagery are outstanding.
Flotilla by Steve Deutsch
One of my favorite poets on one of my favorite sites. This poem is outstanding.
Flotilla
You left behind.
one half a jelly donut,
stale as last Wednesday;
some clothing, moth-eaten,
mildewed; two shoes,
one black, one brown,
with newsprint for the soles.
You left behind a paper sack
of winter warmth, and poetry
by Whitman, Poe and Crane,
well-fingered and browned in age.
You walked into the river
and left behind four dollars
and eighteen cents, which I
have spent on coffee
and a banana nut muffin,
that crumbled in its freshness.
Your poetry; penned
in your perfect prep school hand,
was stuffed inside two newish socks
atop the brown and laceless shoe.
It is unnervingly good,
but I can use the socks.
I crumpled your words in their freshness,
and set them to sail upon the river,
page by remarkable page.
by Steve Deutsch, first published in Weatherings.
Editor’s Note: The title in this poem serves up multiple meanings to…
View original post 9 more words
Tryst
We make love like jackals at a kill;
fall back empty of each other,
of ourselves.
–Sarah Russell
First published in one-sentence poems
A Gospel of Birds featured
I am thrilled to have my poem “A Gospel of Birds” featured with the work of Rajani Radhakrishnan and Carrie Van Horn at Poets United today. Thanks Sherry Marr and all of the folks who commented on our work.
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2018/06/poems-of-week-by-rajani-sarah-and-carrie.html
The Walk
A poignant poem this morning from my friend Ryan Stone.
I wake a full hour early
for the rare gift
of a walk in the woods
with my father.
He is a silent giant
among misty ghost gums.
I tell him, Watch!
See how fast I can run.
He doesn’t yell when I trip
and fall, but lifts me
with unfamiliar,
calloused hands.
At the end of the trail
I study my grazes—jagged
and bloody. He tells me
he’s leaving my mum.
On the walk home
I gaze at the gum trees
and fragmented clouds, thinking
they should look different somehow.
Ryan Stone
Even For Winter
Strength and sadness and anger in Rajani Radhakrishnan‘s words.
Stevieslaw: My poem “Breakdown” just appeared in Nixes Mate Review
This fine poem by my friend Steve Deutsch was published today by Nixes Mate Review.
New in Issue 7 of Nixes Mate http://nixesmate.pub/issue-7-spring-2018/Review
Breakdown
On that endless day in February –
when I found out
you wouldn’t be coming home,
I hitched a ride to Lewistown
in a car so beat up
it might have been lifted
from a junkyard on Route 220.
The delinquents that drove it
were thoroughly stoned
and moved in fractal time –
abruptly, like mechanical dolls
wound for infinity.
We took the grade
down Seven Mountains sideways
laughing at fuck knows what.
They tossed me out
at the train station
just over the river –
a place so desolate and cold
the vegetation that grew there
could not be found
anywhere else on earth
I sat on the icy asphalt
and cradled my backpack,
as if the contents –
some ludes and librium,
two nickel bags,
rolled sweat socks,
and a stuffed dog named Lucky,
could save me from the…
View original post 230 more words
Sarah Russell Poetry 