Poetry

Mukul Bhatia

By

Tikuli

Distance

I watched her from the tea shop

seated on the stone facing the valley

her back was to me, a joint in one hand

a cup of ginger lemon tea in the other

rings of smoke came from her lips,

their perfect seam tinged blue,

part of her turning to ash,

part of her drifting into the sky

the lengthening shadows of evening

held us in their stillness

as we watched our solitude

stark and sharply silhouetted

against the walls we built

Waiting

water dripped from the slate roof of the abandoned house

that perched at the crest of the ridge overlooking the valley,

rain clouds had raced to the distant mountain summits

leaving behind a landscape bejewelled with raindrops,

high above the valley, a double rainbow arched,

its ends lost among the autumnal foliage of the trees

a missed turn can lead you to the most unexpected places

and here I was beneath a canopy of dripping leaves,

in the backyard of nowhere, watching a dream unfold,

the sun, that had made a momentary appearance,

was now gone, obscured again by heavy clouds,

the rainbow was an apparition in the mist shrouded valley

a flock of birds swooped noisily into the trees for shelter,

one of nature’s unerring harbingers of an impending storm,

from above the mist the mountain silhouettes gazed down,

at the house, at me, ghosts, waiting, before everything crumbled.

Tikuli

Tikuli is a blogger & author from Delhi. Her short stories and poems have appeared in print and in online literary magazines including Le Zaparougue, MiCROW 8, The Smoking Book (Poets Wear Prada Press, US), Life And legends, Levure Littéraire 10, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Open Road Review, Cafe Dissensus, Mnemosyne Literary Journal, Women’s Web, The Criterion, Peregrine Muse, Knot Magazine, Asian Signature Magazine, etc.

Her print publications include poems in Guntur National Poetry Festival Anthology, Melange – a Potpourri of thoughts and the much acclaimed Chicken Soup For The Indian Romantic Soul (Westland). Her short stories have appeared in anthologies. Her debut poetry book ‘Collection Of Chaos‘ was published in 2014 by Leaky Boot Press. She blogs at tikulicious.wordpress.com