VANDANA KUMAR

 

Sun In My Eyes

 

Look for answers

In the skies

In questions

Perhaps in spaces

Between the letters written

Unwritten

And ‘waiting to send’

Cry if you find no differences

Between them

 

See the bricks piled up

The trees you planted in youth

The ‘work’

Ostensibly in progress

 

Count the cups of coffee

You now consume

Where is that tender lover?

From youth

 

How many directions you follow

Location maps you access

The city will ensure

You never recollect a place

‘By smell’ or ‘quaint letter box’

 

Trace all the art galleries

From antiquity

Brush strokes that today need

Censor certificates

 

Search your checklist in shirt pocket

Things to do

Sticky notes

That made colorful reminders

On books you don’t visit any more

 

The sameness that each day brings

As yawn stretches

From mall to flyover

Time best utilized

Browsing social media

Like a quickie

At a traffic snarl

 

Don’t look up as yet

For all the Sun

Falling on your face

You know, don’t you?

It is a grey day

 

Oh Albatross!

I have always admired you

From afar

You remain a seabird

Out of my league

 

I have felt your flapping wings

Only in Coleridge’s lyrical ballad

Outside of a now frayed college text

I have never seen you take flight

Of that I am so ashamed

 

Albatross

You aren’t a curse at all

I have heard it whispered

Your divorce rate is near zero

 

Come around my window

I know this isn’t your natural habitat

We need your replicas in humans

As we revive the art of loving

Little by little

 

I want to spend my Sabbath day

Resting my shoulders

On your gigantic wings

 

I imagine you now

Readying for take off

On a long runaway

 

A Dream In Color

 

Colors fill the air

I must be dreaming

I might be awake

Could I be both?

 

In my highway 

There is a garden

Blooming in pitch dark

In a carrier 

Attached to my bicycle

 

 

My heart skips a beat

And kicks like a fetus with wings

Singing birdsong

On a womb lining

There are colors

Spilling from

A never digitally retouched

Black and white song

I sing today

 

VANDANA KUMAR

 

VANDANA KUMAR is a French teacher, recruitment consultant and poet in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites like ‘Mad Swirl’, ‘Scarlet Leaf Review’, ‘North of Oxford’, ‘Grey Sparrow Journal’, ‘Lothlorien Poetry Journal’, ‘The Piker Press’, ‘The Writing Disorder’, ‘The Drabble’, ‘Bard & Prose’, ‘Dissident Voice’, ‘Halcyon Days’, ‘Founder’s favourites’, ‘W-Poesis’, ‘Borderless journal’, ‘Madras Courier’, ‘Outlook’, A Turkish newspaper ‘Sungurlu’, Glomag etc. She has featured in literary journals like ‘Fine Lines’ and anthologies like ‘Harbinger Asylum’, ‘Kali Project’ (‘Kali Project’ is now in the ‘North Carolina Regional Library’), ‘But You Don't Look Sick’ etc. Indie Blu(e) Publishing featured her as one of their authors on their website. She is also a contributing author in the short stories anthology ‘Cocoon Stories: Imprints of Childhood’, published by Authorspress, India.  Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-cinema’ and Daily Eye. She was a jury member for the ‘All India Poetry Competition’ organized by ‘Cocoa-Butter’ and also co-edited their debut print anthology that resulted from this competition.