Voices Within: Sanjeev Sethi

Sanjeev Sethi has authored five books of poetry. He is published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 375 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. Recent credits: Outlook Magazine, Stand Magazine, Erbacee Journal, The Recusant, The Lake, and North Dakota Quarterly. He lives in Mumbai. Find him: Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 Instagram sanjeevsethipoems

Spring 2021

Remember the bewilderment 

of finding yourself 

all alone

in an unfamiliar locale? 

Faces with KN95 masks 

carry that look. 

The unfortunate measure 

of feelings: 

their fizz is fizz. 

This seems to-be long drawn out. 

Sooner we qualify it:

better it’s for our ballast.

***

Left Field

Your eyes key 

fine compositions 

on the slipperiness 

of sensations, 

arc between bowing 

and being in charge.

I am accustomed 

to another signal. 

Constrains have to collapse. 

I pick up the accidence 

of another expression. 

Who can match the fluency 

of the mother tongue? 

As in my case: 

the language of repining.

***

Band-Aid

Antigodlin frames annoy. 

I persist 

in correcting them. 

Can the real things

ever be counterbalanced? 

Unending avowals apart,

your lips restore my reliance. 

The seamlessness of your absurdities 

sops in my fixedness. 

In suchlike circling, we go on chiming.

*** 

---

Setu, February 2022