SALONI KAUL - POEMS

Saloni Kaul, author and poet, was first published at the age of ten and has been in print since. As critic and columnist Saloni has enjoyed forty years of being published. Saloni Kaul's first volume, a fifty poem collection was published in the USA in 2009. Subsequent volumes include Universal One and Essentials All.
Most recent Saloni Kaul poetic production has been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Misty Mountain Review, Inwood Indiana, Mad Swirl , FIVE Poetry, The Voices Project, The Penwood Review, Mantid Magazine, Haikuniverse, Blue Pepper, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Cabildo Quarterly, AJI Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, River Poets Journal, Belle Rêve Literary Journal ,Taj Mahal Review, Verbal Art, Poetry Pacific, Ink Sweat And Tears and Military Experience And The Arts (As You Were : The Military Review) . Upcoming publication acceptances include Blueline, The Penwood Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Cabildo Quarterly and Indiana Voice Journal.  

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​ALL YOU THINK

​The right hand is inclined only clique-wise to take,
The left is yet to learn to paltry give.
Such unity rare upfront’s exhibited in this counsel ,
So happily trustless the twosome slack staunch  live.
 
All thought and substance only to yourself strict kept,
Blurt out like fountains excess water into sink.
Highstrained, restrained, rain ropes upon public adept ,
Before the public say all that you do not think. 

​ECHELONS OF SONG 

Golden cheeked warbler, ruby crowned knight ,    
Light darting high flyer who only those ups seeks  !
That gold oriole voice climbs the tautest scale,      
Wholesome mature dancelike radiance plays at its peak.     
 
This yellow warbler  scaling highs of life’s song drills
Beckons even the lowly to fly out of bounds ;
Like one seeking soulmate emits vast range of trills,
Gurgles whistling crescendo loud akin to fullest sound.
 
All those who listen   try and rise to touch the heights,          
At each outpouring , heart at last tells right from wrong ,
When voice still elsewhere   still sings its own song
Is there a kind of fadeaway into dim lights ?
 
Situation is reversed! Song which tried to escape its fate
Is forced to stay to sing of life and living kind
While the song’s bearers are carried away in state
Leaving the closer to land warbling song behind.

​

​SEASONED DODGERS

​The road that runs along the sea
And hugs the coast sporadically each tight inch
Is saving its self from the bluff-like splash
Or its own sloe-eyed wave-inflicted flinch.
 
The sea that playful washes all land’s ends
In those erosively mild gentle slaps
Is either mock retreating in those hard-to-gets
Or artful briskly giving tit for tat.                

​CANDID CONFORMANCE 

As patient painstaking as a photographer 
     that waits for leaf or flower to still to photograph ,
Waits for harsh breezes to turn placid , winds to drop
     till they are at a photo session apt ‘flat calm’,
Waits for the absolute right early morning haze
 or special evening light most flattering
  to that scene his main subject scholarly ,
   his object of fop modish keen interest;
Holds breath, his camera fixed ready, waiting
 for those most densely swirling mists to clear,
   thick fog to settle, clouds to thin disperse
    to kindly then allow that glimpse of glistening peaks
(Your trick photography photographer
   would even go to the extent of taming
    grand nature, backing physical planned universe
     up strong with hidden cardboard sheets
      and plastic boards all to contrive effects) ,
There they go arguing over fast film
  (ISO 400?) great for those closeups
    in which the fastest shutter speeds
      (the small aperture) are required.
Some strict insist on kodachrome 25 fine grain !
There he is hours down on his knees composing
   his closeups to obtain the right proximity
      and angle to then photograph clear sharp
         a minuscule item to maximum effect !
Fiddling around with polarisation filters
   to try reduce those stray reflections rampant
     and that occasional glare discomfiting.
Like poet closing in upon the scene,
The starved for detail, appetite for tight
 precision, cameraman just seldom seems
  to have enough of making the so little 
   all big and bright and all the better
    for us to see and dwell on at close quarters.
 
Macro photography where all of life
 looms large like megadose of tall reality
  or fact embroidered to swift meet your taste !
All the while using closeup lenses,
 efficient macro lenses or bellows.
Like a pair of binoculars, a telescope,
 those spotting scopes all playing wonders true
  with the sight barrier. A touchdown realm ,
   rush fountaining close focusses quite instantly ,
    that crystalclear and tacksharp viewing.
Those sharp clear definitions all very well,
 to vary and work where sharpness isn’t called for ,
  a quick change of lenses results in softening!
Where nature’s light’s inadequate to light
  your subject, to add detail and contrast
   to shadows, you keep light low on it strictly,
    entranced you play around all you can
     with that available light natural
Recording that much larger world, and seeing
   the tiny world’s great treasures inch by inch.
In closeups, depth of field shrinks to thin slice :
  all the better to focus on detail, amplification plus,
    (as Big Bad Wolf said to Red Riding Hood ).
How daring is photographer or lover
   trying so hard to get a little closer
     than sheer proximity or etiquette allows,
       for comfort or for accuracy prime spot on,
         to that frail allcorrectness   sound agreed upon
            clean boundary o’ intimacy.
 
For large magnifications (when longer
  exposures be required) to minimise blur,
    use tripod ! Fix a handle to get firmer grip! 
Blur, the lurking demon false and feigning
   created by camera movement !
Thanks to the shallow depth of field of macrolens,
  the closeup is enabled to effect ,
    excelling in its high selective sharply
     focussed image, unmitigated clarity itself !           
Distracting elements in zones periphery,
 irrelevant backgrounds are muted so ,
  toned down to make your subject sharp and welldefined.
 External clutter soon reduced and trimmed,
  all brushed aside like flimsy cobweb stretches,
  your towering theme of main interest pops up
   in stately dignified contrast.
 
Looking for architectural detail
 where twining texture is all in all ? 
  ornate the capital of that Corinthian column ,
    plain elegance the astragal, elaborate
      showy cornice. Exaggerate each shade
        and each hue overstate, till there’s scarce need
           for argument ; so double day precise are we!
Texture is all ! touch taffeta in twists , almost 
 smooth run your fingers through your subject’s flowing hair,
  recline feet up on lush upholstered chaiselongue,
     you see and sense its softness. All but sip
       the dew on newest blue-green leaf , enter
         the labyrinthine whirls on this bird’s eye maple
           and hear the boasting of that puffed up boy.
Closeups! as if more stunning than the long shot tight
   that gives the bird’s eye view, totality of scene.
Enhanced tactility quite elemental,
yet with a range of dazzling true effects,  
from seeming real prosaic and close at hand
 to looking surreal out of proportion
  when exaggeratedly close   for effect.
 
Total consensus! You enter the picture .....
The long shot takes you far and you observe
  all from a distance that lends its own firm
     enchantment to the one selected view.
The drama of frequently altering
 visual pace generates unprecedented effect.
Spatial equations flashed between
  two people alter as they come closer,
   the understanding of each other; then the need
    to quick withdraw, retreat into one’s envelope
     and sudden draw up close together yet again
      for a real closer glimpse, cheek by jowl,
       in all avowed tight-edged intimacy.   
  
So, technically a closeup picture
 is all of a tenth of this chosen gift
  reality, of your yoked subject;       
  macrophotography could be lifesize
   and larger, as extravagantly melted
    as wildly strewn elite hyperbole,
    extraordinary as caricature ,
     much closer than your usual eighteen
      inch distance and usual zoom lens allows.
 
In this era with that infinitessimal
 alarmingly less and less bench working space
  between prized lens and most engrossing subject
   we all appear to like getting cramped so.  
                            
As long as , in the culmination,
 it isn’t too close for comfort !          

​PROSPECTS ONTO BEAUTY

​With sun from radiant heavens eftsoons snatched,
Bereft of beauty, awkward in darkness, newly
You turn to me craving comfort, grasp clumsily
Like newborn fledgling in need recent hatched.
 
When rapid moving mists over them sweep
Stark mountains bare go whirling out to sea ;
Illusions all cling to, true beauty trustworthy,
Like staid delusions make one shorn of beauty weep.
 
Alluring each prospect of beauty, luring as prospective kiss,
Prospect onto perpetual beauty is always the next promise.
 
            With changing perspectives, first shine  then fade   
Angles ; constant the prospects of beauty that prosper ,
Like an updated old prospectus, staunch upholder
Of standard , yet startling in themes that seldom jade.
 
Life’s scenic prospects change like sentry on duty.
You think you’re stranded, stuck to archipelago medley;
By isolation charmed, with me moved as unduly !
Therein lies potently the strange unfathomable beauty.
 
Alluring each prospect as trenchant shifts prospective beauty,
So lures effectively the prospect onto eternal beauty. 

​EXTENT OF MY WORLD

​There comes a time when I see the world quarters
All through the filtered haze of my own writing screen ,
A scrawl of words that write themselves on scene --
Magnifically telling talking of the waters--
 
And in the depths of crowds and on faces of strangers,
That’re sucked into the vortex of my words ,
Shut like Rapunzel in my word tower , undeterred,
As I immeasurable roam freely like a ranger.
 
They let their hair down  most enticed  to browse
Through stress unstress quite uncommanded in silence,
Imbibe the music of the consonants and sibilants,
And air the vowels in assonance declaimed like vows.
 
And like exiguous starved for fame  parasites
On gradual exuded fame and fortune fed ,
By slow degrees they revel in a town infinite painted red
And clear express opinions as in large plebiscites.