Vikram Seth Poems

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -
...

Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn
...

After a long and wretched flight
That stretched from daylight into night,
Where babies wept and tempers shattered
And the plane lurched and whiskey splattered
...

Sunday night in the house.
The blinds drawn, the phone dead.
The sound of the kettle, the rain.
Supper: cheese, celery, bread.
...

Let me now sleep, let me not think, let me
Not ache with inconsistent tenderness.
It was untenable delight; we are free--
Separate, equal--and if loverless,
...

To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test. --

To lie and love, not aching to make sense
...

With no companion to my mood,
Against the wind as it should be
...

My need has frayed with time; you said it would.
It has; I can walk again across the flood
Of gold sil popples on the straw-gold hills
Under a deep Californian sky that expels
...

Since for me now you have no warmth to spare
I sense I must adopt a sane and spare

Philosophy to ease a restless state
...