kashmiri chili.

by prasanna   Jun 19, 2021


dip your fingers in the blood-red skies like you would
with alta dye – tonight, i will study your hands as they
slip into mudras with ease. i am illiterate when it comes
to you, and you alone – how does one peer into a gentle
universe offering a warm embrace and come away with
the right words to describe the how their heart-strings
were gently plucked by a harpist? i am in flux; there are
a multitude of words for this – for you, and here i am
searching for verses of poetry in cups of rice-wine.
tell me o' jasmine-pleated girl, the one with amber
churning in her eyes – can i drape the sun on you
like a saree? i cannot traverse your tiger eyes,
so answer me violently –

would you quell me,
with your monsoons?

    report violation
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  • 3 years ago

    by Nevi

    I loved this! It carries a very intense feeling of calm, much like that feeling you get when you're enraptured by someone you really fancy. You really painted a picture here, but without getting too specific with the wording, it lends itself well to that light day-dreaming aspect.

    The use of lowercase letters and dashes rather than full punctuation also helped keep the trance unbroken.

    If you haven't shown this to the person in question, I would!

  • 3 years ago

    by Rayven

    *exhaled* There is a multitude of thoughts going through my head after your words. Absolutely stunning visuals and wordplay that mixes well together.

    The first thing I noticed that most people might not is the fact that you used the word illiterate. Now it's not an uncommon word in itself, however to a person that doesn't know poetry or is seeing this poem for the first time might think you are in fact illiterate. That's what works to the poems advantage. The other thing I've noticed lately through a lot of poems I'm reading is not using capitalization.

    I LOVE the use of it here though because you used lowercase "I's". That also tells me as the reader that you didn't make this poem about you. Which is difficult to do at times, but I think you did it well. It's difficult to take a back seat but also include yourself.

    The poem is through the authors eyes, and you are spying the eyes of a girl whom you seem to love or at the very least have a crush on. That's the feeling I get at least. You want to study this person's hands because you wonder how they could choose you over anyone else in the universe. You feel warmth and gentleness from this person's hands because they are tender like a harp.

    You are unsure how to feel or even do because you have never felt this way before. You are searching for the right words to say or write and this silence is unusual. This person smells of jasmine (I can only assume it's one of the reasons you love, because it could be one of your favorite smells).

    You want to protect this person with your life because you see them as the sun or perhaps one of the only lights in your life. You are unsure how this person feels so you want them to wash over you.

    I wouldn't change anything here at all. I cannot praise this enough. Especially the wordplay

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