Sanjeev Sethi – Five Poems


 

Feebleness

Every whipstitch it is essential to be exposed
to lifehacks cached in inner chiffoniers. Better
still to exhibit them on primal vitrines: easy
to access, easy to annex.

On my way to the solemnities of your last rites
the one hosted in my mind, I resolved never
to be reminded of you but I neither possess nor
have I penned a grimoire.



Magnificat

At parturition I signed a wordless debenture.
In unsaid ways ligature through lineage speaks.
Irrespective of unbridled routines born in reticulate
settings, they cradled me in their canons. For the
nonce chasms of prelapsarian days are filling,
confecting the clincher: I was a patzer on this shogi.



Doily

Swart napery cross-stitched in canary
or straw, discreet like slivers of positive
energy. Eddies of excellence festinate
my formlessness with intercepts, that
refuse to leave me to my lot. Textures
of cozener excess I sublet to cartonnages.
Help me, I need to reach myself.



Offprint

Locked in the drill of daily liaisons
the lie I bought bilked me. Some
are emotional ecdysiasts. Yestreen
I erased chapters of my slim volume
where ugly emotions and egos beat me.
Now, there are phrases to patent and
peddle on lanes of love. When moon
never messes with me, wind is cuddly
and beams coded messages, when all
utterances seem right.



Answers And Questions

Inner tubes hurt. Sometimes they come
with unusual coatings. When epanodos
of ache follow it is prudent to invest
in prongs. Explicatory court sessions
are best judged pro se. Questions equal
inefficiency. Age allots us authority
to adumbrate our inadequacies. Self-
regulated inquiries manure our
menschiness, enhance amour-propre.


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

Beauty is a celebration of concinnity. At first blush it makes us cognizant of nature’s bounty. This can be in the form of an image or an idea. Beauty is a blessing and as with all divine sanctions it makes us worthy of ourselves and our whereabouts.

The presence of pulchritude is a physiological experience. But, beyond the physical manifestation there is beauty in nuance, in ideas, in umpteen acts of kindness. It is such moments that ensure the wheel of human enterprise is oiled and moving.


 

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world including Red Fez, Drunk Monkeys, The Penwood Review,  Poetry Pacific, Transnational Literature, Postcolonial Text, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.