‘Is it true, we can only love so much?’: Four poems by Kashiana Singh

Mouthful of Cloudbursts

 Feather soft droplets, uncertain and fickle
Surprising sounds, glassy sheets of revival
Gushing in to announce a transparent arrival
Initiating an odorless ovation, trickle by trickle

Rooftops lay flat against a tiptoe dance
Hummingbirds listen transfixed, in pleasure
Flapping grief, into a euphoria of collapsing treasures
The wet night sings to darkened drapes, in a trance

Particular aroma of a lightning struck earth, engulfs all form
Undulating color draws patterns of seagull wings, dark sky
Desire ruptures itself, comatose beside leftover boxes of Thai
Heartbeats rescue each other, inhaling a moldy smell of the grass

Howling death sounds, drown raging kisses
Purple streaked canopy, plunging empty into black eyes
Crushing raindrops, into mocha keeps passion in disguise
Pittering and pattering, a pulsating remorse passes by

Soaking into its torrential depths
lusting between sunset and sunrise
Streams chant seductively to themselves
Breaking horizons, into a bellowing bronze

I inhale the petrichor, each evening
I submit nakedness to prescribed rituals
I swallow mouthful of cloudbursts
I lean into your humid breast
I dissolve

***

Katputtli fables

you, collapse to erupt
into mushroom shapes
clouds that nestle within
themselves, tears witness
to destruction, an annihilation
lays silent claim
over wrinkles that wander
your face
jasmine vines, growing wild
into secret encounters, whispered
veins of grief, poppy cups
colorful petals bathed in madness
bursting stamen stems
disseminate fear
into a stubborn birth
to ornamental life
poppy capsules pregnant
with your drunkenness
life, and death, and desire
you, lie broken, spread wide
on an unheeding
twilight floor, your dawn forces
a manna of thunder, piercing
your languid breast
force
of a collective heartache
force
of painful muscle memory
force
of miraculous sunsets
force
of your prayer fragrance
of your cauldron remnants
of a visceral wilderness
force that oozes stillness
force of combustive hearts
force that
kindles you towards
daybreak
where you again collapse
to erupt, and erupt again
force, of your acid reflux
a loud sourness in your chest
force as loud
as
a collective cry spreads
like shards, scattered
intestines
through
katputtli
towns

***

questions at dawn

8 questions that reappear at dawn

1.
Is it true, we can only love so much?
That the wild lets you stay in touch

2.
Is it fair, we face the weather in submission?
That even ants and rabbits can awaken your vision

3.
Is it a wonder, we are wanton in life?
That deathbed tiptoes an end to strife

4.
Is it true, we do not have to despair?
That talking to rivers leads to the marsh of care

5.
Is it odd that we so often exhaust of travel?
That moving is only stillness unraveled

6.
Is it kindness, that sits on our windowsill of age?
That years gather imperfect prayers and uncage

7.
Is it faith, we use to stoke a thousand fires?
That moments of questioning, enable our deepest desires

8.
Is it universal, to submit our flesh towards the dark?
That shadows vanish, often into a frozen glass

***

Rainstorm Warning

rain falls in locusts

your chaos of liquid fury
unleashed on tin roofs
as I ease into a
crescendo of passion
letting it, urge
into my pores, while
the gods make love
when done, I ask
what are you?

you fill my sidewalks
gurgling, growing into
me, my knees becoming
rheumatically inclined
to cobble into my eaves

you are cold in gutters
washing yourself rid of
my warts, purging skins
of their own psoriasis

you are greed collected
stagnant water, sightless
debris of my tears, lapping
into oblivion my hollows

you become a tandav
drumming, a dark night
into my bones, crushing
my wrists as I hold a scream

you gush in an escape
hissing louder than hell
my blood, accumulates
in my mouth, regurgitated

ultimately, you tease
my conjured feet, afraid
of footprints on marsh
to now tread labyrinths in
bullrushes, stumbling
through acoustic hymns

***

Kashiana Singh, 51, is a management professional. Her poetry collection, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words is written as a participant and an observer. She is from India, now lives in Chicago, and her contributions have been featured in The Narrow Mag, Tuck Magazine, Best Poetry, Fox Poetry Box, Women’s Web, OnMogul, Literary Yard, Modern Literature, and elsewhere.

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Read more poetry on Bengaluru Review:

Monsoon verses : Five poems for the season

‘And we smelt like guavas’ : Five poems by Nilim Kumar

‘You may see the city slowing down’ : Five poems by Malcolm Carvalho

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