At the end of long nights birds chirped and squawked, squirrels chattered their heads out. The wind rose and fell and the tall trees whispered. Footsteps swelled and footsteps receded. Footsteps stopped and guffawed and came to peep inside our home. Footsteps cackled.
Author: umashankar
Luna’s Story
Dear Finn, I don’t even know where to begin. But the skies get creepy like a hole in the mouth of a snake with each passing hour. And darkness falls like flakes and sinks into the soul of the dogdom.…
Moondust
Like a penitent pigeon, grief has settled again on the ledge; Molten moons have lingered and shone in vain on the ledge.
The Gunslinger Followeth
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” ~Stephen King In the darkness intervening the 25th and 26th of February, the Indian Air Force executed what is now known as the Balakot Strike, also alluded to…
Unwaiting for Godot
Disquieted and quietened we stand, the pair of us at the brink of the Internet, conjoined and disjointed at the splice of consciousness and a unique resource locator. Beguiled enough to have waited for ages, we have figured it’s time…
Afterwards
Afterwards, I shall be a mote swirling at your window, Without a breath, or a heartbeat, ringing at your window. Noon has stumbled through the half-wicked buildings, Like a blemish upon the wooers singing at your window. Withering are the…
1500. Reaching the pinnacle
Bruce hadn’t achieved much in his life. There was one thing, however, he could do: he could be the first in the history of the world to climb one particular peak of the local mountain range. Reaching the top of this peak had been an insurmountable problem for many who had attempted it. Although few had died in the attempt, no one had arrived where apparently “no human had ever trod before”.
It wasn’t the most earth-shattering thing to do, but Bruce would attempt it come what may. At least to himself he would achieve something of note: a legend in his own mind.
He set out.
After many strenuous days, after falling rocks and slippery shingle slides, after warm days and freezing nights, after scratches and insect bites, after encountering inquisitive tourist parties and aspiring solo mountaineers, he had only a few feet left to go. He reached up…
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Wet Charcoal
Each night I bleed a part of my soul to her beauty, Silken words congeal like a mole to her beauty. A lone moon is treading forth the liminal dust of evening, The dying sun has hitched a veil of…
The Icicled Bosom
Old lesions fester and seep in the cavern of tonight, Dark thoughts gather and weep in the cavern of tonight. A high wind is swaying the maimed tree of deodar, The parched lips of tippler look for tavern of tonight.…
The Man Thing (II)
(Click here for Part I) It is a bit unusual for rains to strike Mumbai in the beginning of November but what surprised me more was the rumbling of clouds. I wasn’t sure when I had dozed off yesterday in…
The Man Thing
As I lie here on the dewan pushed against the window, gazing absently into the impossibly yellow canopy of the Amaltas tree, my thoughts race back once more to the field of mustard I visited on a mellow winter afternoon,…
Teach Me To Dream by D P Dash
Just as I thought I was done with the ash-berries tossed at me by the departing year, suturing up my tattered ego with a ghazal in the reigning obscurity, Mr D. P. Dash ruffled the quiet of my languid existence.…