Fabiyas M V is a writer from Orumanayur  village in Kerala, India. He is the author of Moonlight and Solitude. His fiction and poems have appeared in Westerly, Forward Poetry, Literary The Hatchet, Rathalla Review, Off the Coast,  Structo, and in several anthologies. He won many international accolades including the Poetry Soup International Award, USA , the RSPCA Pet Poetry Prize, UK,  and Merseyside at War Poetry  Award from Liverpool  John Moores University, UK. His poems have been broadcast on the All India Radio.

        The Lunatic Holy Man

​Hole in the ozone layer
of his sense increases.
He mutters to the tomb
of his father, while
clumsy expressions
flash on his face.
A hundred fools
watch him with awe.
It’s paradoxical
they chant holy verses.
He has a big
sedimentary belly
formed from offerings.
He heals the insane,
rustics say,
patting on their crests
or tying black cords
around their waists.
There’s a panacea
for peace for many
in his absurd mantras.
He became a holy man
after his dad’s death
with the privilege of birth.
Lunacy adds charm
to his character.
Fame’s sometimes
a friend to folly.
Even the distant mother
comes with her daughter
for a cure.
There’s a relief in belief.
​

            Endosulfan Rain

​It wasn’t monsoon 
but toxic rain. 
Diya drenched
in the doldrums.
Her head bloated,
brain turned barren. 
Her body curved 
as a cashew nut.
Her legs and arms
dried. 


Aches and anxieties
grow up 
in the cashew farm.
Sad sap oozes
out of her mouth.
Her doll lies dead.
Now she isn’t a girl 
but a remnant
on an empty mat.

(Endosulfan is a deadly insecticide.)

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has has been writing and publishing poetry for the last thirty years. He has seven volumes of poetry to his credit and his poetry has been widely anthologized. He has been published in Gloom Cupboard, Art Arena, Other Voices Poetry, Glasgow Review, Osprey Journal, New Welsh Review, Dead Snakes, Dissident Voice, Poetry Life 7 Times, WritingRaw among many others on line journals and print magazines/ journals in India & abroad. He holds a doctoral degree on the novels of William Golding.

​          In March...

In March when dry winds
arrive, and the stooping woman
still continues to sell
last vestiges of  her fruits
to the haggling, irate buyer
whose bitter mouth
would savour that one last
taste, touch-
when school children 
will shed off inertia
and behave like this 
irksome wind, I will 
sit by the window
and dream of poetry
in hour glass
in a transparent house
of books, words, shelves
with a dancing elf, and 
the wind's legerdemain 
hoisting boisterousness
to write a poem, with these 
emerald shaped hills,
standing in vastness of monoliths.
History unceasing, high priests calling;
the dahlias fading, and streams bursting
into seams of violet hues.

The winds will whisper of evenings
and encrypted souls who lived
in this hill town traversing history
like gladiators in a war of hope.

I will go to the monoliths again
to see their ancient inscriptions
while those sacred groves remain
in muted silence, horizons of 
distant skies.

Rony Nair slogs as an oil and gas Risk Management “expert/ director/ Vice President/consultant”-up on the greasy pole! He’s been 20 years in the industry since starting off as an Industrial engineer a long time ago. Extensively traveled. Dangers fronted often. But that’s his day job. The one that pays for bread and bills.
He’s been a worshipper at the altar of prose and poetry for almost as long as he could think. They have been the shadows of his life. (They’ve been) the bedsit at the end of a long day; the repository that does the sound of silence inimitably well. Not unlike a pet; but with one core difference- the books do suggest, educate and weave a texture that marginally provides streams of thought that are new. And one of the biggest pleasures of his life, is certainly holding a treasured edition in one’s hands. Physically.
Rony’s been writing poetry since 1985 and was a published columnist with the Indian Express in the early 1990’s. He is also a published photographer about to hold his first major exhibition and currently writes a regular column for two online journals; one of them widely read over South India. Rony has been profiled by the Economic Times of Delhi and has also written for them. He cites V.S Naipaul, A.J Cronin, Patrick Hamilton, Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Nevil Shute in addition to FS Fitzgerald as influences on his life; and Philip Larkin, Dom Moraes and Ted Hughes as his personal poetry idols. Larkin’s’ collected poems would be the one book he would like to die with. When the poems perish. As do the thoughts!

                         




​                                 Caress

The more certain the ambiguity,
The more certain the truth.

you're out there,
knowing,
the way i feel
in solicitude.

the more i feel sequestered
the more i sense your presence
walking the streets 
adrift 
alone.

the only lay is in riposte
the only death by raffle
the only snakes
we embrace
are all deadpanned
as one.

the only truth stays filtered
through a hundred different lies
the only broadsword slaying the beast
lays sheathed. 
in deceit.

the only response is silence
the only rage a game.
the only faultline lies buried beneath.
Falsehood. Blame.

there’s only love.
buried amidst the refuse. 
the rubble. 
the delusion. 
the hate.

freeform. 

Rony Nair works as an oil and gas Risk Management consultant. He’s been 20 years in the industry since starting off as an Industrial engineer a long time ago. Extensively traveled. Dangers fronted often. But that’s his day job. The one that pays for bread and bills.
He’s been a worshipper at the altar of prose and poetry for almost as long as he could think. They have been the shadows of his life. (They’ve been) the bedsit at the end of a long day; the repository that does the sound of silence inimitably well. Not unlike a pet; but with one core difference- the books do suggest, educate and weave a texture that marginally provides streams of thought that are new. And one of the biggest pleasures of his life, is certainly holding a treasured edition in one’s hands. Physically.
Rony’s been writing poetry since 1985 and was a published columnist with the Indian Express in the early 1990’s. He is also a professional photographer about to hold his first major exhibition and has previously been published by New Asian Writing (NAW), Semaphore, The Cadet, The Economic Times and YES magazine. Rony has been profiled by the Economic Times of Delhi. He cites V.S Naipaul, A.J Cronin, Patrick Hamilton, Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Nevil Shute in addition to FS Fitzgerald as influences on his life; and Philip Larkin, Dom Moraes and Ted Hughes as his personal poetry idols. Larkin’s’ collected poems would be the one book he would like to die with. When the poems perish. As do the thoughts!

FLICKS AT 41 by Rony Nair
​
flicks at 41 lean to the side as a bat swing takes you away for that moment when you forget that ache, the finality of the rejection, the turning away.
the urge to seek the toilet seat and retch as the ball comes into view again and the bat swings at your 3d head and misses where you hope it’d hit 
and India sneak a rare win. 
as then the ache hits you. 
Blocked on LinkedIn too. 
i mean, your enemies wouldn't bother. 
She would.

USE AND THROW  by Rony Nair
​
there's always the wait,
in connections,
that have turned away.
Redundant,
in a global age.
where you're drawn closer,
and then spat out.

like the gutter.
the vomit
a guilty pleasure 
to use. 
And throw.

it is always the one who discards,
that is loved.

BATTERIES by Rony Nair

would transitory memory be better
or batter
for the actuate
the real.

who remembers places revisited
other than the emotional spike of it all
when you glimpse a letter or  trail
that leads me back to
where it all began
round a culvert
inside a bend
with you on one side
 
and at the other side,
The end.

TOTEM POLES AND BIRD SANCTUARIES by Rony Nair

the old totem poles
an imagined sanctuary.

the birds still know it all.
the views from the station 
look like that day.

your favorite corner
was rancid.                         
Alone.
Extant.

I remembered the tale
the movie “chamatkaar” take
an actress saying no when she meant yes.                

the only question then, 
was when!

the birds could look after themselves.

It’s different now
the same birds stay on.
They linger. They rub it in.

The birds still give me the bird. 

And you are of course, 
long gone.