Soapsuds on a Spree

Roads that don’t reach anywhere…
—Poetry by Sanjeev Sethi, Mumbai, India
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of
Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

VELLUM

There is a distinction between Fifty New Poets


and Fifty New Poets to us. It’s in the nuance.


Courtesy is a kink carried in lieu of craftiness.
 


 

A clement exchange harms none except those


with the brief to boost animosity. A few pack


an aliquot of anger generated in their genes.
 

 


A beach has ho-dads; that is how it hums. Some


strains never air: it’s a series of missed shots.


Cast aside your diffidence of being different.
 


 

As a yardbird of the cosmic, even if you yearn


for the next confinement, wear the caftan or kurta


of kindness. It will even out your anticipations.


(prev. pub. in Otoliths)

 

 

ANECDOTE

On the lips of an argument
my tongue
seeks another alcove,
an alien one.

My hissy fit
deigns to impair you
with cuss words
from an argot far away from us.

But as my anger-pistol
births sweat bullets;
you refrigerate the atmosphere
by switching on the air-conditioning.

And I’m left with this poem.

 

 

SYNCHROMESH
 


My views don’t need a visa to permeate. I’m


an expat, even without applying. As my ideas


migrate, I begin to occupy your mental real


estate. We aren’t neighbors. I’m your live-in.
 


 

You say you desire newness: no-one does. We


wish for the same encased in another wrapper.


Neoteric unsettles the status quo. It’s rebarbative.


Familiarity with frequency erases fear.


(prev. pub. in Transnational Literature)

 

 

 

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 back-
ground score, which dictates the mood of the
metier. Ungula marks hail the homage.

(prev. pub. in Live Encounter)

 

 

STRAIGHT STUFF
 


No peddling of patriotism


at the box office 


mousetrapping our boys as martyrs

in the theatre of conflict

as policymakers blunder.

 


Catasterism is not writ


on everyone’s citation.


Roads that don’t reach anywhere


are like soapsuds on a spree.
 


 

Those who rag on the government


and its attending channels


must band together with legacy


and new age media to glean,

systems will be systems.


(prev. pub. in Loft Books)

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,


Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

______________________

Sanjeev Sethi joins us for the first time today. He has authored seven books of poetry; his latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He has been published in over thirty countries, and his poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune, during its 75th anniversary in the “family members category.” He lives in Mumbai, India, and can be reached at Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 and on Instagram at sanjeevsethipoems/. Welcome to the Kitchen, Sanjeev, and don’t be a stranger!

Tonight at 7pm, Brickhouse Gallery and Art Complex in Sacramento presents Word Play 2, as six All City Writers do 15-min. sets each, including spoken word. Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about this and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

_______________________

—Medusa

 

 

Sanjeev Sethi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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