Poetry 2012 Featured Writer, Vineet Kaul

How I Harvested You from the Fields of Time

Dear Samara,
When eyes ferment monsoon’s nostalgia,
                       tears curdle into the sweat of old deeds.
You licked them like gumdrops 
                       dotted with powdered karma
and renamed your dreams to Oliver Twist.

Introduced to the scent of inheritance
the rusting-iron hiss of the scarlet babble brook
                                                  was your blood, wailing;
penitent for its contagion of sins.

Tranquility deflated
by splinters of deconstructed words;
                                                           monosyllables
were your conduit of disenchantment;
your stillness;
                      a conduit of stone.
Yours was half-body sans soul
    twitching
in the astral conduit of light
                                     irate at your assemblage of planets
sieved into a diorama of sleepless night.

You nailed the atrophy of your dreams
to your lips, called the rashes reality
and burrowed
                       into an ingrown recluse
between your folds of skin;
                                            mocked by time.

Pores were your tavern that winter.
Cradled in their residue of dirt and salt,
                                 I watered warmth
to irrigate you from within.

Genuinely Yours,

      - troubadour