Sanjeev Sethi – 4 poems 

DESICCATION

You were my stomping ground, regrouping

takes time. This is the essence of eldership.

I can intellectualize grief. Earlier on I would

weep and wail some more. Lamenting sans

lachrymatory spectacle is an age leg up.

Some things just dry up.

 

 

 

ASSENT

 

It isn’t easy to receive others

in registers other than

their ab initio downloads

onto our domes.

Noticing their gestalt

isn’t a natural impulse.

It has to be goaded.

 

Peeps are unlike arpeggios.

Like drawers in a sideboard

they split themselves in shelves.

Chasing their bliss folks

choose melded frontages

like fugues. In acceptance

we can clean our corners.

 

 

 

THERAPY

 

Mine is solitariness. Yours is fanning

a weighty contributor to your kitty.

The line of demarcation is delineated.

There is no confrontation. Alternate

day our telecon lasts for ten minutes.

Everything I say is right as rain. I only

hear *bilkul theek. 

 

*Absolutely right

 

 

 

CRUISE

 

Stowed you in a ship without the stevedores knowledge.

Instead of beseeching God to overslaugh your station 

conjure to be cared for in the slot you’re in. Grief isn’t

about scope or scale but skills as a surmounter. Gnat’s

bite is unbearable for a few, for others snakes are slight.

 

 

SANJEEV SETHI is the author of three well-received books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world includingThe London Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Novelmasters, Zarf Poetry, The Galway Review, Easy Street, W.I.S.H. Press, Degenerate Literature, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Darkrun Review, Spirit Fire Review, Zoomoozophone Review,  and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.