GAS Featured Poet: Sanjeev Sethi

 Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, 2022). He has been published in over thirty-five countries. His poems have found a home in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK.  He was conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. Highly commended in the erbacce-prize 2024 for poetry with over 9000 submissions worldwide, Sethi lives in Mumbai, India. 

Preparedness
 
When all else fails, seek fulfillment  
in excess. The salvific syntax forms
on its own. Sometimes, it is the gap
between engines or another gig.
 
Sometimes, emotional stability obliges,
as sagging intuitiveness strops.
It is as if sierra of deep thought drops;
and margins extend to the subjacent.
 
In most cases, it isn’t onerous once
you’re fit and fain. Costive energy
rarely helps the gaunt processes.
Gabbiness lights up the crawlways.

A Cappella

You heard my hush. Full-throated entreaties sometimes

arrive nowhere. Fulfillment of a velleity is a sweetener
from the karmic store. In telephone calls, I am usually
the last one to disconnect. Hard-fisted partners scrimp
on feelings. Excitement has a way of evaporating. Atrophy
of the love gene stumps the emotional impresario. When
the voyage wraps up, they cast aside their dazzle or dimness.
It is upon us to single out which side we want to varnish.

Verset after Verset
 
The lapidary verse requires no backstory.
 
Tyros are usually the most intransigent:
Episodes of ache fan open-mindedness.
 
Why, in the subaltern areas, you rarely
chance upon settlers with spectacles?
 
Volitant etchings chirp
in tune with the warble
of wheelchairs.
 
When there is an itch to inquire,
do you love me?  The answer
without an answer is crystal-clear.
 
The hydra-infused phase
is like a lacerated thigh,
as one lesion deadens
another demands attention.