BIO
Nalini Priyadarshni is a prominent Indian poet writing in English and widely published in India and world over in numerous literary magazines and journals. Her eclectic tastes reflect in her poems, widely anthologized and collected in Doppleganger in My House and Lines Across Oceans which she co-authored with Poet Laureate, late D. Russel Micnhimer. She has been nominated for The Best of the Net 2017. Her greatest talent lies in turning regret into dust.
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Sun in Cancer
July is the treacherous lover
I was warned against
but couldn’t care less
luring with promises of forever
we both knew wouldn’t survive
a single monsoon
He arrived like a thunder storm
breaking stealthily into my tailbone
stealing into greedy fissures of thirst
ripping them apart with pleasure
before bursting into lusty showers
and disappearing into mugginess
that now sits on my chest
squeezing around my ribs
I wish I could be a wise woman
sporting waterproof mascara
who treats catastrophe with equanimity
keeps her passions under wraps
cries only in shower, where
children couldn’t see her tears
writes poetry sans grit
or love
not uttering a word about desire or loss
Memories play pranks on slippery grounds
threatening to slip covers onto wet chairs
we once sat in with festering lore to heal ourselves
sullied now with unspoken farewell rotting on my tongue
gift of self-love resting untouched yet, by its side
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Poems of Loss- 1
Mortal Remains
Couldn’t believe you were gone
until the one you had entrusted with the unpleasant task
wrote in, offering comfort as best as she could
what she didn’t mention was
what they did with the rest of you
Between giving in to despair
and hoping against hope
it was some prank you played on me
It didn’t strike me for a long time
that I will never really know
Not a believer of second coming or everlasting life
what did you choose for yourself-
wilderness behind your childhood home
where your parents rest
or some other haunt
Eternal traveller of both time and space
hopefully you are off to a new adventure
across galaxies or perhaps
in another dimension
you woke up in time to dial 911
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Poems of Loss-2
Pilgrim of Eternity
And when a candle is blown
the other still aflame plunges
in abyss of anguish
looks at fading spiral of smoke
and imagines a flame
where there is none
in denial
clutching the fringe of hope
that the pilgrim of eternity
will keep promises
once exchanged
******
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