Beneath the willow’s sleepy green sigh,
we whispered dreams too soft to try,
your fingers brushed my startled skin,
a thousand blooms awoke within.

The river sang of distant seas,
your breath like petals of the sky,
I dared not meet your longing eyes,
their burning pulled my soul to shy.

Dusk wove gold through tangled hair,
a yearning sweet enough to bear,
your shadow kissed my trembling hand,
I lost my name to shifting sand.

A moth to flame, I curved, I spun,
half-afraid, half-hoping to be undone,
your silence broke like glass on air,
I drank the shards and did not care.

Moonlight poured in silver streams,
our bodies wrapped in distant dreams,
a touch, a pause, an ethereal flight,
we barely breathed against the night.

Your heartbeat throbbed against my lips,
I tasted stars on your fingertips,
lost in the hush of aching thirst,
too young to know if blessed or not.

Between the wish and whispered fall,
we built our heaven, doomed and small,
each stolen glance, a hidden sin,
a thousand stars just burned within.

Susanta Pattnayak

The moon dripped silver on the pool,
Where lotus sighed and waters cooled;
The night was silk, the air was wine,
And she — a flame in wet moonshine.

Her anklets murmured on the stone,
Each step a kiss the earth had known;
Her bare feet slid through rippling light,
Each toe a whisper, soft and white.

She came — her saree clinging thin,
Each breath unveiling folds of sin;
The silk, once proud, now begged to fall,
From aching ******* that answered all.

The breeze, a thief with trembling hands,
Tugged loose her veil's modest bands;
It slipped — then caught upon her curve,
A sigh escaped the watching stars.

Her *******, half-bared, half-shamed, half-bold,
Shifted with breaths too sweet to hold;
Their trembling crowned with dusky tips,
That pressed like prayers against her slips.

Droplets clung to her shivering skin,
Mapped secret paths from breast to chin;
A single bead hung at her throat,
A kiss unsent, a lover’s note.

Her hair, a wet and breathing tide,
Clung heavy to her gleaming side;
It framed her navel’s secret gleam,
Where all the mortals forgot their dreams.

Her glance — suggestive, but knowing well,
The endless thirst her body spelled;
Her laughter, ripe with lush delight,
Promised both mercy — and the night.

Her saree slid, a lover's tease,
Falling lower with every breeze;
A shoulder bare, a trembling hip,
A gasp half-formed upon her lip.

She turned — the water kissed her thighs,
The moon lay broken in her eyes;
Each step a moan, each breath a song,
Each sigh a place where dreams belong.

The sages prayed to stone and sky,
But none could tear away their eye;
For in her sway, in flesh, in flame,
All scriptures crumbled, wept her name.

The sage, who carved his soul in prayer,
Felt every vow dissolve in air;
His beads fell silent from his hand,
Forgotten on the trembling land.

He rose — not saint, not god, but man,
Drawn helpless to her scented span;
Each step he took through the dreamy mist,
Was one more heaven he had missed.

Her smile, half-moon, half mortal sin,
Beckoned him closer, pulled him in;
Her saree trembled against her thighs,
As rivers burned in both their eyes.

The world spun slow — the stars withdrew,
As flesh remembered what was true;
In that one touch, that final sigh,
Even salvation learned to die.

She opened arms of mist and flame,
And called him softly by no name;
No heaven higher, no bond more sweet,
Than where her skin and his breath meet.


Susanta Pattnayak

(A Song of Love, Loss, and Condemnation)

We came where the Lidder flow,
Where pine trees guard the earth below.
Pahalgam cradled us in grace,
A honeymoon wrapped in nature’s embrace.
We held each other on the mountain bend,
A love that felt like it would never end.

The air was pure, the sky so wide,
He laughed with joy, I stood by his side.
But then came thunder not from the skies—
Gunfire tore through our lives.
He fell with a whisper, his eyes still warm,
As horror bloomed where dreams were born.

Oh, although the pine still sings,
My heart can't feel a thing.
He died with his arms reaching for light,
In the meadows of Pahalgam… robbed of our right.
Twenty-six souls now sleep in snow,
Where only peace was meant to grow.
Tell me how faith became this blade—
That carves through love in a holy charade.

They came like shadows, hearts turned to stone,
No warning, no mercy, we died alone.
He wasn’t a soldier, just someone in love—
Now he lies silent beneath skies above.
Blood flows through the lush meadow’s green,
In Baisaran Valley, where peace had been.

Now the world itself breathes with grief,
And paradise weeps through every leaf.
How many must die before we say—
That no belief can justify this way?

We light our candles, the world moves on,
But love once lost is never gone.
Condemn these hands that **** and maim,
No God demands this kind of flame.
Let not one more vow be broken by hate—
Let peace rise before it’s too late.

Susanta Pattnayak

I wake beneath a sky of glass,
Where morning’s tones in pulses pass.
The walls project a forest view,
Though outside lies a city new.

My mirror greets with voice so sweet,
It scans my health from head to feet.
“Your vitals shine,” it says with grace,
While brushing teeth in zero space.

A suit wraps round with warming thread,
It shifts to black or blue or red.
Its fabric learns from mood and light—
A second skin, both soft and bright.

I step inside my transit pod,
No wheels, no roads—just paths it trod.
Magnetic lanes and silent speed,
It reads my thoughts, then takes the lead.

At work, the walls are minds, not stone,
Each desk responds to me alone.
My co-bots build with laser art,
And code appears as I just start.

We craft new worlds in quantum flow,
While time bends gently, soft and slow.
A thought can birth a flight or game,
And dreams are now a form of flame.

A break? I dine on clone-baked bread,
With fruits from labs where genes are bred.
The meal adapts to what I crave,
And cleans itself—no plate to save.

By evening, homes in towers rise,
But mine folds out beneath the skies.
Its AI paints the twilight hue,
With stars it learned I once called true.

My daughter calls from ocean’s deep,
Her submarine a school and keep.
We speak through lights and neural thread,
As sea-glass drifts above her head.

At last I rest on levit-beds,
With lullabies from bots and meds.
And dreams arrive in chosen streams,
From curated, delightful dreams.

Yet still within this world so wide,
A human spark must yet decide:
That though tech bends both time and sea,
It’s love and thought that make us be.


Susanta Pattnayak

You left our bed at morning’s sigh,
A fleeting kiss, a soft goodbye.
The stars still clung to dawn’s sky,
Now tears and time just linger by.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

The bangles hum your name till dawn,
The shadows sway, their light withdrawn.
My soul’s a flame, its spark long gone,
Your absence weaves my fears till morn.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

The sheets still hold your fading warmth,
But cold winds chant a lonesome storm.
My heart, once full, now frays, forlorn,
Each clock’s slow tick a wound reborn.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

No message comes, no whispered word,
No echo from that town unheard.
My wedding joy, now grief’s own bird,
This bridal bloom, once bright, now blurred.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

I light the lamp, I breathe your name,
The night returns with wind and flame.
Alone, I bear a wife’s soft shame,
Yet in my heart, you’re still the same.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.



© Susanta Pattnayak

A few thoughts—like wild dogs—run,
Snarling, sprinting, none in unison.
One walks wrapped in quiet reckoning,
Another leaps from the shadows—unannounced.
Serious faces in the gathering of silent aches,
While jesters sneak in, stealing peace.

He walks—a slow tide at sundown,
Breeze in chest, no ripple in sight.
But beneath—magma hums lullaby,
Cradling fury like a sleeping child.
Cool eyes, volcanic veins,
A storm rehearsing in a candle’s calm.

Family—his driftwood and his anchor.
The balm and the blister.
They lull him with laughter,
Then jolt him with a sigh too long,
A silence too sharp.

And yet—
There is a place.
Not drawn on maps or etched in stone.
Where scattered thoughts find their rest.
Where the mind exhales what it held too long.
There—he folds into himself,
A silent hymn of peace.
Not even or odd.
Just still.
Just enough.
...

But the world claws back—
A phone buzz, a sigh across the hall,
The clink of plates, a missed stare,
Little things—
Each one a thread in the tapestry of turmoil.

He smiles. Sometimes wide. Sometimes just enough
To not break.
His voice—a riverbed in drought,
Holding the shape of past floods.

The night asks questions.
Why do shoulders carry what the soul can’t name?
Why does love sometimes bruise,
Even when it’s trying to heal?

Yet still—he finds it.
That sacred place.
Maybe it’s a song only he hears,
A far away place deep in nature, unknown
Or perhaps, it’s just the breath
Between two thoughts—
Where nothing aches, and nothing burns.

Here—
Even the chaos kneels.
The fire sleeps under wet earth.
And the day, whether odd or even,
Slows…
To a whisper.



Susanta Pattnayak

After a sprint for several years,
Amidst the din and bustle,
I sat one day, quiet… to think.
No phone, no plan, no subtle hustle.

The world kept spinning just the same,
But something in me asked to stay—
To watch the wind move through the trees,
To feel the weight of just one day.

I traced my steps in silent thought,
Each victory, each sleepless night.
Were all these miles I chased so far
Still burning with their promised light?

I didn’t judge, I didn’t grieve—
Just let the questions slowly land.
Had I been present as I ran?
Did I still know where I began?

There in that pause, I met myself—
Not the name or role I’d worn,
But something softer, more alive—
The part of me not built for scorn.

It whispered not of wrong or right,
But simply asked, with open grace:
Is this the path you meant to walk?
And do you know your truest place?

No thunder struck, no answer came,
Just stillness deep and strangely kind.
A quiet room, a steady breath—
The rarest peace: a quiet mind.

Somewhere beyond the ticking clocks,
A bird took flight without a sound.
The air grew light. The moment stretched.
Along the window rim, a star blinked.


Susanta Pattnayak