shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Bio


Aditya Shankar writes in English and Malayalam, and publishes poetry and articles in leading journals across the globe, including the The Little Magazine, The Word Plus, Indian Literature, The Literary X Magazine, Munyori, The Pyramid, Poetry Chain, Mastodon Dentist, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Bayou Review, Words-Myth, Chandrabhaga, Miller's pond, Message in a bottle, Aireings, Hudson View, Snakeskin, The Legendary, Literary Bohemian, Meadowland Review, CHEST, Earthborne, CLRI, Muse India, Cliterature, Asiawrites, Terracotta Typewriter, Clueless Collective, Vox Humana among others. He has been featured in a leading Indian daily, The Deccan Herald, in a series on living Indian English writers.

His fiction has been published in The Other Herald and The Caledonia Review, and non-fiction has been part of Ethics in Action. His First Book 'After Seeing', a series of poems based on cinema was published in 2006. His short films have participated at International Film Festivals. Currently, he lives and works in Bangalore.


Aditya Shankar


 

Silent Valley

I want to live the life of forests
complete with sudden attempts at songs,
to reach and caress – as if a lover.

to use my word-wing-heart at will,
as if a poem that always finds
a hole to your mind

On the path across the Silent Valley in mighty fog,
I would beat the automobile
to the footmark of the wild frog —
a cold wind on the wild fruit that a
lion-tail Macaque sniffs to vanish into your opacity

At the clatter of the tourists,
the forest reduces into a superficial prototype of itself —
a parasail over words and meanings, and
I am only left with the frustum of this tree trunk,
to leave this wild message.