Sandeep Kulshrestha's Poetry

  I was smitten by the silence of the dawn, or perhaps it was the dew that clung to the grass like a secret too fragile to speak. The trees stood tall, their leaves whispering stories of nights spent wrestling the wind, and I thought it was just me but the sparrow, too, carried the weight of its nest, the ant its crumb, the spider its web, each thread trembling with the burden of holding on.   The sun rose, not with a fanfare, but with a quiet insistence, pushing through the haze like a hand reaching for a forgotten name.   A butterfly brushed past, its wings a flicker of pale yellow against the orange sky, and I thought it was just me but the flower, too, had its petals to unfurl, its nectar to offer, its brief, bright moment in the sun.   The path stretched ahead, winding through the shadows and the light, and I thought it was just me but the earth, too, had its cracks to mend, its roots to...

Hope is a green vine, climbing the walls of the forgotten, its tendrils reaching for the sun even in the hour of shadows. It does not ask permission— it grows, it persists, it wraps itself around the ruins and whispers, “Me Voici”   Hope is the sea, vast and untamed, its salt on your lips, its rhythm in your chest. It does not sleep it rises, it falls, it carries you even when you cannot see the shore.   Hope is the bread broken in the darkest hour, the warmth of shared hands, the taste of something that will not let you starve. It does not explain it feeds, it sustains, it says, Come, eat, there is enough for everyone.   Hope is the bird that sings at the edge of dawn, its song a thread stitching the torn sky. It does not falter it calls, it rises, it reminds you that the night is not eternal. Hope is the hand you did not expect to hold yours, the voice that says your name when the silence is too loud. It does not abandon it stays, it breathes, it says, You are not alone...

  Sometimes the illusion of a happening happens sometimes the emotions roll over sometimes the pathogens of spilled over desire sabotages the pilgrimage of the heart sometimes it is good to divert attention towards the non-attentive nerves sometimes it is okay to be what we are sometimes it is really a exhilaration of the existential to be  in those moments of rapture where time ceases to exist and you and me measure the moment through a deeper turmoil of being alive sometimes it is good to fall sometimes the brain functions paralyzes and the raw nerves get pricked up sometimes we gain our sanity by responding to the deep trance of the emotional and the physical Sometimes we need to paraphrase guilt when love envelopes our being, there is an absence of guilt and presence of something divine, something which cannot be deciphered, defined or  even transferred to someone else's perspective What happened was something that would have happened in a dream Sometimes there is a n...

  I was bitten by my inadequacies Or thoughts of disbelief and trance merged together with a conscious shock this Thursday and I thought it was just me someone would have lost their job last week someone's partner would have departed someone's toxic boss would have thrown venom of the tongue all over her someone would have missed a meal someone would have negotiated a bad deal A chef would have goofed up with a sourdough which was meant for the Wall Street type Someone would have been fooled by a hype of a political figure who apparently was merely a mask I was just bitten by a random dog All reaction

Circa 1993, a splendid corrosion of old identities   dissolved at a business school   the mindset of allowing   new ipseity to harness itself   took me to my new evanescent dream   which was never to be   a cursory stealing glance from her   through my accounting notes   was enough fodder for my anticipation   somehow lead us to exchange our phone numbers   and the first call was missed   as I was away, attending the “beating retreat”,   a celebration of the republic   it was a joy of the superlative kind   can’t manifest here, in few words   the news of a phone call was full of a beatitude   Delhi was never so beautiful   the next wintry day   made me see   a girl in shawl over few cups of tea   over the terrace of an old building,   a makeshift education space   I scatterbrained myself, off...

Coffee brewed in my mind when the drizzling Sunday morning arrived and I thought that a warm luscious chocolatey muffin could give a good company to the decadent latte and I drove down silly to the space where the endearing muffin dictates taste and aroma to the unwitting cup of a brown liquid which had an ancestry of beans  not so long back Muffin, all yawning and in its day dreams was just out of the oven not yet properly garnished or displayed it was raw and fresh and kind suddenly everything became uncluttered  and the naughty glimpse of the sun dislodged me completely and when I came out of my reverie the muffin had cleverly melted in my soul Sunday mornings can be so appetizing!