local_library Empty sceneries

by Sravani Singampalli

Published in Issue No. 253 ~ June, 2018

Everything is haunted here

In this place called as

The ‘town of the dead’.

That man in grey shirt

Says that even Paracetamol and Aspirin

Tablets are no longer used here

Because people believe that ghosts

Are hidden in them.

Hearing all this I remember

How my mother used to warn me

Not to eat the papaya seeds

How she used to say

They’ll grow into papaya trees

Inside my stomach.

Even today I say the same thing

To the little children

In my street.

I enjoy the queer notions

Things which take me to another world

Things which make me believe in aliens

Things which take away my breath

When I know

They are nothing

But just empty sceneries.

 

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Name of the poet: Sravani singampalli            Email id: srvscool@gmail.com                        Bio: Sravani singampalli is a published writer and poet from India. Her works have appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, Spillwords press, Criterion journal, Setu bilingual journal, Whispers, Labyrinthine Passages journal, Indian Ruminations and many others. Her poems are also forthcoming in Leaves of Ink, Kitaab international, Formercactus, Gone Lawn journal, Vox Poetica, The Pangolin Review, The Blue Nib and elsewhere.