Literature from India and the world over! Indian Literature Magazine
A naked Kali dances atop the mantlepiece.
The smell of paraffin hangs in the air
Like the death of glory on a breeze.
This night would be a cold one.
My sisters warn me about how
Like the red and … [Read the rest...] “Saffron and the Seven Sins | Shanaia Kapoor”
She’s ashamed of my eyes.
She’s left my eyes to the fish.
My lips are abandoned buildings.
My jaw is Detroit.
My feet live below the poverty line.
I am trapped in traps.
She is made of milk and jewels … [Read the rest...] “On Being Left | Ron Riekki”
A beginning
A glowing promise beckons
Days are short; time is shorter.
Surprise around the corner
In autumnal tones awaits
I am in turmoil
Wanting the radiance of new
Desperate to leave history behind
Rid the sterile pessimism of
Unfulfilled … [Read the rest...] “August to September | Bindiya Bedi Charan Noronha”
I was brushing off the memories of yesterday
over a pause in the afternoon
when I heard a knock on my pillow.
A person I had met once before called from the door.
Greetings were passed. ‘Nothing’ was up and … [Read the rest...] “When ‘Nothing’ is Up, and Everything is as ‘Usual’ | Prateek Joshi”
There is hope only for the dead —
they who have been buried or are willing to burn.
I shape myself with life —
a hungry mantis fighting to keep death away
I hasten within
— the scream of a … [Read the rest...] “A Forgery | Prateek Joshi”
Trying to sleep but butterflies fill me.
Every face I’ve known seem sealed in my memory.
The trinkets of hair I once owned,
now just hills on the countryside.
Only if I would forget my past,
three pawns and an … [Read the rest...] “The Winter Months | Gautham Pradeep”
Across the plain where
dust moves like a little
creature running from itself,
there is a room in the palace
where I lie down on
the soft carpet.
I listen to Sri Sattru playing
an evening Raga on his … [Read the rest...] “Poem to Myself | C M Brown”
Not a collective
It is personal
Beautiful is
Not a qualification
Not a rank
Beautiful is a feeling
Not a judgment
A poem
And not a test
Is a practice,
Beautiful
is love.
But tell me
How to be?