Carried Forward

By MANOHAR SHETTY

Beyond Furniture & Fixtures,
Fixed Assets incl of Plant
& Machinery, Goodwill incl
Of Green Donation & Tree
Trimming Vehicle, Gross
Profits, R&D on WMD
Incl of Hospitality,
Sundries (in million)
As Incentives to sundry
Inspectors (of Boilers)
& Miscellaneous Agents
Incl of Undercover,
And an unnumbered account
In the Caymans, here is an
Asterisked footnote
In the fine print—words
Carried Forward for their
Own sake, but clear as a trickle
Of water dripping
In rhythm deep in a skeletal
Megalopolis
Buried one metric
Mile below the burning
White landscape.

 

Manohar Shetty has published poems in journals around the world, including Shenandoah, Chelsea, New Letters, and Rattapallax.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

Carried Forward

Related Posts

Black and white image of a bird with a long neck

Dispatch from Marutha Nilam

SAKTHI ARULANANDHAM
With the swiftness and dexterity / of a hawk that pounces upon a chicken / and takes it by force, / the bird craves / snapping up a vast terrain / with its powerful, sharp beak / and flying away with it. // When that turns out to be impossible, / in the heat of its great big sigh, / all the rivers dry up.

Tripas Book Cover

Excerpt from Tripas

BRANDON SOM
One grandmother with Vicks, one with Tiger Balm, rubbed / fires of camphor & mint, old poultices, / into my chest: their palms kneading & wet with salve, / its menthols, to strip the chaff & rattle in a night wheeze. Can you / hear their lullabies?

Blue cover of There is Still Singing in the Afterlife

Four Poems by JinJin Xu

JINJIN XU
my mother, my father. / Her skinny blue wrists, his ear caressing a cigarette. In the beginning, / it is already too late, but there is hunger & no time / to waste. All they need are six hands, three mouths, a clockwork / yearning for locks of their own, windows square & fresh.