Vikas K. Menon is a poet and playwright whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Lantern Review, burntdistrict, diode, and The Literary Review, among others. His poetry manuscript godfleshwas a finalist for the 2010 Kinereth Gensler Award and semifinalist for the Beatrice Hawley award, both from Alice James Books. His poetry has been featured in Indivisible: An […]
i. about yoga my father knew nothing but in america he translated into a fakir, at vision’s edge a shade of sabu and so he stoked their exotic for his use, his nautch girls white as swans, giggling over the hand’s play as he traced fate rambling across their palms— whatever it took to make […]
Elephants sway in my mother’s English— Pleased to meeting you she says the multiple suffixes of her mother tongue affix themselves to her meter: Okay-na! In Malayalam, vowels sit like an egg on tongue, ant to aardvark. Her voice vies against drumkit English, hums with the rhythm of a mridangam. In English, the word Malayalam […]
the lover must remove the veil of her face. hell will fall if papa hears him. if the storm of disgrace enters through the window, my father’s turban will be disrespected. don’t develop an affair with me. this is the dust of the storm in your eyes which can cause havoc. truth is always dry
for vocalist Urna Chahar-Tugchi urna sculpts a thousand horses of dust, wind flayed ribs naked on the steppes, unutterable lullaby to the gale, a tempest flower. she keens for the lonely arc we leave our little ones, desert wails for the breach of each birth: desecrated silence. bless me with your wept howl molting foal, […]