Sanjeev Sethi


Postiche

There is more to the dissemination 
than presenting anorexic pouts. 
Size zero has a place in glossies 
and gush throwaways.

Apart from the backstairs display 
for the booboisie: trivialization 
nourishes no one. No gonzo 
campaigns, please. 

In the athenaeum, the thirst is 
for curiosities to be quelled. 
Is volte-face 
by the virtuosi possible?



Exclusion

The skewness of my stopover 
reaches me as I read memoirs 
on the bestsellers list.
From the penumbral 
to the public eye 
is not everyone’s call. 
Invisibility, for some, is intentional. 
Omitting another from our orbit
is the harshest blue-pencil 
we can adopt on the text 
of human interactions.
That it impacts them or not 
is for another sitting?



Score

Two competing narratives of history 
never meet up for a mug of java, 
share their scrambles, 
seek validation from the other. 
All this as historiographers  
are impatient to pan them 
to this or that heading. 
Narratives are static 
until forces against their hegemony 
gather momentum: 
as is the case with latter-day brass tacks.



Antsiness

A backset revives all one intended to misrecollect. 
The goofproof is for the neotic godown. Biog on a  
slick is static, unlike astral plans.

Repentance for an act that hasn’t ensued, generating
amends that it doesn’t eventuate, is in enchiridion of
the wary. An old warhorse plays it otherwise.

The one who is capacitated to offer usually turns
offensive: this is the theme of our grind show. In
toto, I’m like the striking surface of a matchbox.



Voice

Imagination facilitates 
to capriole barriers set
by birth and its concomitants. 
When ammo of invention 
hurls at the dartboard 
of knackered designs 
they ride in opportune directions. 

Comfort of conscience 
sanctions thought 
to marinate 
in the sauce of ideality 
while images 
underwrite processes 
with cerate of catchwords.

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: Erbacce Journal, Dreich Broad Review, The Recusant, Sledgehammer Lit, Futures Trading Anthology Eight, and The Heron Clan Anthology V111. He lives in Mumbai, India.

 
 

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