Aditya Shankar


At the Somber Bathtub, Water the Ponytail of Crooners

The mediocre statistics of Baker’s,
loved the piano.

Always,
the keychain clacked for girls to leave.
The shop, dark and lonelier inside.

Sometimes at night,
the candy disappeared with the
lovable wine bottle to Central Park.

The sad red heel didn’t cry, but was
a love-song-mixtape for the toe ring.

Towels sent fan letters to breasts,
squeezing vanilla on Saturday wind.

Sandwiches lie on the invisible bed of
a fork dancer – the hips, blue belly, and
hot contours wiggle for the mesmerized.

At the theater of naked hurt, a stranger
from faraway treetops is reading the law
of extinction with a deep voice.

My kind of tiny fingers heart the honeysuckle
playing A minor for the imagined eyes.


Source Text: Glossary of Chain Accidents by Temim Frutcher, Issue 57, Brevity



Eardrums Panic about the Angry Fists of an Ex-Partner

The rose cat stripped
the moon of her nightgown.

Naïve lips glitched into the
warmth of relevant territory.

Through the eyelids of a window,
they tongued a good time.

Night, the underside of a duvet.

Shaking off a scare from the
crevices of voice,

tired legs crossed the peak of fury.
Age gap escalated the temper.

How do you turn the room into a
shelfable souvenir? The throat quips.

The dressed up human walking
towards the door, pause.

All you need to do is exhale a bout of hell,
hear the serenade of an emotional rose,
blanket the rancor in a cool sunlight.

At a point tension let go of time,
the couple roll back into a kiss at the park,
caramelize into dance on a goddamn date.


Source Text: Roulez by Anna Keeler, Vol 2 No.9, Drunk Monkeys




Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet, flash fiction author, and translator. His poems, fiction, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in the MoonPark Review, The Ghost Parachute, Canada Quarterly, Indian Literature, Modern Poetry in Translation, Anti Heroin Chic, Dissident Voice, Hudson View, Munyori, The Other Herald, Asiawrites, Pear Tree Press, Cliterature, and elsewhere. Books: After Seeing (2006), Party Poopers (2014). He lives in Bangalore, India.
 
 
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