Download PDF Here Live Encounters Poetry & Writing October 2022.
Flowerage, poems by Sanjeev Sethi.
Flowerage
Flowerbeds are difficult.
They demand response
like poets who publish
a book or two.
The axis of the earth belongs
to where the wind
carries our weight.
Air that emits
from the footprints
of the gone-by
settles on the staircase
of diction. My baton
rejoins the orchestration.
It turns me into a circumstellar.
Nullity
The body is on a lease; we carry no sempiternal
claims on it. The vain feature in countless motion
pictures sponsored by illusionistic studios. These
outings hold no halo: they are like froth.
When every interaction is impetuous, you wonder
if this is the fallout of not being a householder.
Meliorism is the mantra of the upbeat. Can karmic
markings be modified?
Rendezvous
In the hushed mounting
of horizons
I burst into your vennels
of vocabulary and
through them into a lemming of lust.
You tow me to a place
where the fault lines of fantasy
meet the unfamiliar, and I begin
to ask myself:
why isn’t this for me?
Vivification
Not in pieces yet;
perhaps with an imperforation.
My shadow has an alias,
but it is not easy
to pick new phrases.
My conditionalities turn me
into a monopsony:
I buy myself.
On the parapet of
an evening gone wrong,
I’m cautioned of
the intimidation of walls, of
me offering security of brattice.
The remit is to masturbate
the other emotionally:
so the caret recedes.
Repetition
In a closed space, the dilatory maneuvers can never arrest
an exhalation from delighting or disturbing the olfactories.
During the small hours of darkness, memory unbuttons
herself and beckons me to watch the cabaret of winters
no longer in our ledgers. A turn of phrase or the origin
of an idea springs out of her curvaceousness. The eagre
settles the background score, which dictates the mood of
the metier. Ungula marks hail the homage
© Sanjeev Sethi
Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His last two: Strokes of Solace (CLASSIX, an imprint of Hawakal, Delhi, July 2022) and Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He is published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He is the recipient of the Ethos Literary Award 2022. He is the joint-winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. He lives in Mumbai, India. Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 Instagram sanjeevsethipoems