City Without Water
War's end brings desert thirst, strange milk rites. A bloody kiss ignites…
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From Matchbox
Matchbox – May ’26
Nothing is Missing
Arranged beauty, a vanishing self. Silent guns in the corner reveal an ever-present, chilling threat.
May 28, 2026
I wake up early,
arrange the antique rugs from Beirut
change the flowers in the vase,
the window glass trembles
like the silent love,
everything remains in its place,
even the vanishing moon in her eyelashes.
I realise
everything is so beautiful,
I rearrange everything again,
nothing is now missing
except my name.
I see—
they stand in the corner,
quiet and unmoving,
as if they had always been there,
beside their loaded guns.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONThe Night, a Naked Knife and 4 other poems
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Ashwani Kumar
Ashwani Kumar is a poet, author and academic in Mumbai. Widely published, anthologised and translated into several Indian languages, his poetry volumes include ‘My Grandfather’s Imaginary Typewriter’, ‘Banaras and the Other’ and ‘Architecture of Alphabets’. Recently, he has published “Rivers Going Home” (Red River)- a major anthology of Indian poetry. He is author of the acclaimed non-fiction ‘Community Warriors” (Anthem Press), and one of the chief editors of ‘Global Civil Society’ at London School of Economics. He is also cofounder of Indian Novels Collective, an initiative to popularise translation of classic novels of Indian languages. In leisure, he writes a book column in the Financial Express.