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                                                                          Issue 8

Page 30

The Vernacular of Poetry

The vernacular of silence cannot be heard by ears which are profoundly ringing by the overwhelming tunes of lofty desires. Silence has no shape and a beautiful shape at the same time. It can fit itself in the trickiest of places. It can strip itself of any facades and stand stark naked in front of you and still, you can not trace it. Sometimes it lives surreptitiously on the edges of the serrated palm leaves bathed by the shifty-eyed moon. The hushed whispers of the moon cleave a story out of the night's cleavage. The balmy wind carries the whispers under the thick layers of the drapes. We all have a story to tell but only a few can interpret the silence. Silence culled in the bones can birth a rattling symphony for generations to tell. Sillence culled in the twisted boughs of the wild oak. An unwanted witness to the miseries of mankind. A silent giant. Sometimes nature has its own lexicon of spoken and unheard. You just need the right pair of ears to listen to. Like the turbulent story of an ocean in roughly carved layers of the conch. I can still hear the waves if I press my ears too close to it. Nature is humming a sweet lullaby. Only a few can hear it. Silence and death are interchangeable the moment you part your lips.

Megha Sood __

Screaming from the Silence

The stillness in the air hangs silently and waits for its communion with nature. Like an orphan speck of dust bouncing on the strands of the sun. I feverishly look for an anchor. My life is blinded by the thick luminosity these sudden joys bring. Grief begets acceptance. Thoughts rattled like a puddle of water disturbed by the stone thrown and breaking its skin. Grief like ripples, traversing in haphazard directions. An outgrown fractal of grief. Growing incessantly and devouring everything like a blind tornado. Here everything is numb carrying the deep stench of loneliness in its folds. Here the nights carry the scars deeply carved in the serrated ends of the palms leaves anointed by the frothy moonlight. Here the shifty-eyed moon is my mute witness to everything beautiful and scarred. Here I am screaming the loudest in the cleave of this marred night but still waiting to be heard.

Megha Sood __

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Requiem for a Dream

The one-horned night pokes, cleaves you in half
it coagulates all your experience
in a thick slimy liquid dripping through all parts of your
porous soul when the imaginary has broken the leash
now running stark naked, uncontrolled, unfettered,
in the surreal fields lit by the burnished sun
birthing a thousand dream in your half-open eyelids
as a requiem for a half-dream, suffused with the deep sleep
with bated breath gasping for air, dream resting on the soft ends,
of your fingertips like a fleeting touch of a butterfly
Your hands stretched out, fingers clawed
scooping away your share of lightness
from the sky laced with dying light of the day
that sliver of happiness throbbing like a heavy vein
in your temples, heart racing, and throbbing
ears buzzing with the electrified hum of the
fireflies dancing in the nights, these naked moments of the
nights cleaves your heart open, slices off in halves
leaves you standing under the ashen nights like a saguaro
beckoning the dark skies. You finally become witness to this
the monstrosity of nature as it rattles you up from your nightmare.

  Megha Sood __

© Michael Lee Johnson: Fiction Girl 2

Games of Deception

I concede to the silence
willing and knowingly:
cystic pain in the frames of my broken window
unhinged from the truth,
is waiting fervently

for that final blow of the winds
that boisterous gale,
to stop this incessant jamming
every stormy night

scarring of the soul has deeply set in
the skewed painting in my room
that unspoken truth;
waiting for the yellow sun to rise
everyday

waits for its due of the soft shadow
when the treacherous sun
plays with the chequered parquet tiles
/pain is a colorless remembering/

A balmy cloud sits mighty on the
edge of my half-eaten window frame
bearing the broken promise of the rain

I lay quietly
my eyes wide open--
gazing at the bosom of the ashen night
from emptiness to nothing
amazed by this truth seared on my soul

Does nature also have its own games of deception?

  Megha Sood__