SwayamPrashant (pen name of Dr. Prashanta Kumar Sahoo) was born in the undivided Cuttack district, Odisha. He was formerly an Associate Professor of English at Sarupathar College, Assam, India. He has written seven books and two booklets. They are : Evaluation of Textbooks in the Teaching of English (based on his Ph.D. thesis); Values in Life (based on a research project on Vedic and Upanishadic writings); Knowledge Tree (miscellaneous prose writings); Haiku from the Garden of My Own (poetry); Live Like A Man (poetry); Premras Amrit (poetry in Assamese); Virgin Land Impregnated (a thematic study of Canadian folk songs); Joy of Love (a unique booklet of love poems) and The Sky Conquerors (2024). A number of his poems have also been published in several international poetry journals and anthologies by editors like Keith E. Sparks Jr., Courtney Glover, Paul Gilliland, Jerry Langdon, Jimmy Broccoli and Hulya N. Yilmaz.

Love Lips

Adoration
Love
Every woman is a rose.

Eyes
Words
Silence is speech.

Eyebrows
Arches
Kings bow down to enter.

Palms
Fingers
Lotus buds are golden.

Reflects
Refracts
Shines diamond on nose pin.

Petals
Red
Twins entice like glue.

Clouds
Dark
Hair cascading in waves.

Smiles
Winks
Seduced to the bone.

Love
Lust
Both are in kucha-kumbhas*.

Fleshy
Heavy
Nitambas**  pin down the lover.


--------------------------------------------
Footnote:
*Sanskrit word for ‘pitcher-shaped breasts’
**Sanskrit word for ‘buttocks’

Fire

Although I covered my heart with iron shields 
you entered it nonetheless
and you didn’t know that you did.
I too didn’t know that you were a fire
and was unaware of what you lit.