Neem Leaves

By Anu Mahadev

In this wonderful second book, Neem Leaves, you will find yourself riding an emotional wave as Anu Mahadev uses her mastery of imagery to weave a fabric of thoughts and emotions. Written in the year of the death of her mother-in-law, she uses the poems as an outlet for her grief and sorrow as she and her family cope with their loss. Although the book centers on grief and loss, they are interspersed with moments of love and beauty as she explores topics from the mundane to the exotic, from the everyday aspects of life, to memories of her childhood and youth in India, to her passion for traveling and nature.

In the end, after the tears have dried, Neem Leaves will leave you wanting for more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496961877

Anu Mahadev

Anu Mahadev was born and raised in India and moved to the US several years ago to pursue her graduate studies. She is currently an MFA student at Drew University in New Jersey, where she resides with her husband and son. She can be reached at [e-mail].

Book preview

This night (A ghazal)*

What of dreams at dawn that bask asunder? This night?

I see myself with cruel hands that plunder, this night.

I’m secreted to foreign sands, clad in gossamer robes

The scirocco pummels, inviting thunder, this night.

I inhale in rusted paper; the desiccating Sahara heat

The drought we lave, in Marrakech, and yonder, this night.

Libations that you pour into this scalded throat of mine

With gratitude I stare at you in wonder, this night.

Are you a creature borne out of fire, earth or water?

I flicker like an ephemeral blunder this night.

We are found, sculpted, immaculate, seared in moonlight

In an act of final surrender, Anu, this night.

___________________________________________________

Ghazal - An ancient poetic form originating from Asia, specifically Persia and Arabia.

Atlas

Geography was never one of your strong suits.

Yet - here we are. You’re reading the lines of my

face, navigating the roads of my body.

Touch me and I’m

smoke.

I confuse you. But you’re not lost.

You find me.

We burn like camphor, we douse like a wick

hissing in water.

Our mouths aflame in the dark.

Our heartbeats the cadence of the same poem.

I fling the compass out. We only need

the stars in our eyes.

Mistress of Hearts

I’m busy. I hold myself up with tape and glue

each day. You rip me apart each night. I wish

you were made of papier-mâché too, you would

then rustle in my hands, crumble at my touch.

I tear off the stars in the sky, darn them into you

and drape you like a quilt. One that vanishes every

morning. This poem drifts in, with the poet. It takes

one look at the discarded drafts on carbon copies.

Yes, I don’t exist within the realms of these words

any more. The poem does not reside in me. Maybe

you do. If this is what it takes to make you write

one-liners to me, I must stop. The alarm clock tears

us apart, while I hurry to suture us together. I’m awake.

Awake in your bed. I know, this is all just a dream.

My typewriter sits at the escritoire, menacingly cold.

I pour your empty words into it. It whispers through my icy fingers.

And I wish, for once, I could just parade you

out in the open, like this poem. Till then I remain,

mistress of hearts, with the writer’s block.

One Way

The city lies beneath my feet, silent,

hushing itself to sleep, untangling

its hairs free of crisscrossing traffic.

I dream of you each night, light years go by,

and in them you grow stronger, my yearning

fiercer, my eyes - these venus fly traps

that will shut only when you are safely in them.

But one-way streets part us, if only the wireless