at the quarter of a life

as skin sheds for another skin
and lips curl in a rueful smile
and veins stand in a soft sight
of green and black and blue,

i understand that blood thickens with
years that pass by through the organism
of a body, beginning to feel its own death.

as winter transfuses with the cold of
big bones, the elasticity of meek muscles
beckon a certain warmth of touch for
life, in the always prevailing lack of time.

i have seen the concentric circles on
my limbs change in half a decade,
and my eyes bloom in hues of hibiscus
and rising-rose, like a lamp, left with
a slight glimmer when the light has been
dimmed with the passing act of another day.

i wonder if my aging is my decline
(the wild image of calm & turmoil),

or is it the other way round?

© Anmol Arora

Image source (Shedding Skin Painting by Newel Hunter)
Linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads

coming back

the odd-familiarity leaves a dull feeling
to compensate for all those years past —

coal and gravel need to stick to the soles
of my slippers, as a reminder of all that is
glued with the truths of an empty hearth.

the oil-paint peels down on my shoulders,
plaster sticks to my falling hair, reclaiming
the flesh that was shed at a time of loss,
a mark of the presence, of a pulverized hope
that everything can be whole once more.

the lights are cobwebbed in a frenzied display
of lives, lived in entanglements of an arachnid-
mesh, of raised voices, flippant arms, bruises
and burn-marks self-inflicted in the watershed
moments, to break free from the unified mold &
the intrinsic blockades of the wry social norms.

this coming is like the trace of a feline paw-mark
made, re-made on the veneer of this ménage —

the rust on the old photos, broken glass, wiped
tabletops and dust motes on the couch (that still
carry the shape of me), all fervent to clutch & grab
once more at my oft-broken, and remended heart.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (Homecoming by Kinga Ogiegło)
For Wordy Thursday with Wild Woman: Homecoming at With Real Toads

words and other kinds of addictions

jarred from a pint of smoke
swirling like a gothic eyeliner
in my lungs, i feel the white rush
of an unsung addiction all over me
(being breathless in lieu of living),

i have seen beatific dreams of
an obtuse octopus, jeering jellyfishes
through my inner-channel
of reprieve – the loss of only a certain
kind of mediocrity,

i do not fit into the lines of my sleeping bag,
too big to carry my shoes on the head,
or crown me with metal links, or to tattle
through fists – the truth of only a certain
kind of morbidity,

i am a wastrel marooned in the aftermath
of my demise by goodness, unfit to perform,
cease control to rememorize, or to chase
my ghosts – the habit of a certain
kind of melancholy.

.

Image source (Up In Smoke Painting by Meredith B)

For Wordle # 202 at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

It’s been a while – I haven’t felt the need to make a post in all this time. I have still been writing and discovering new avenues of my own expression, developing and improving the craft of my verse and its corresponding art. I have incidentally worked on a short collection for myself, indulging in everything from writing and editing to framing the layout and designing the cover (owing to my amateur skills in layout and designing software). It’s been an invigorating experience. My thoughts are catered now towards the idea of getting it published perhaps – I do not know yet whether I should pitch it for traditional publishing or self-publish it instead.
Nevertheless, it’s good to be posting something on this blog again, which had helped me through the harshest of times and made me fall deeper and deeper in love with poetry.

a Meaning behind a Meaning

to derive a meaning behind a meaning,

I try to realize, so to make a paper boat

of an understanding, and float it in flood

by the descent to that river down the hill,

against which I lean, plunging the edges

of a parchment on the lips, on the limbs

splintering every callow cell, tissue, organ

to create lesions of meaning I look for,

.

to see the meaning behind a meaning

that he tries to grasp by bathing in vinegar

thoughts, shunning away the common pain

of looking through the window at the abyss-

pitilessly waving at him with a coarse fabric

of his skin, of parched lips, and broken limbs,

as he mumbles a minutiae of a prayer, phonetic

words while beading the rosary of meaning,

.

we: he and I, merge at a destined landscape,

we grapple taking reins over each other,

finding in no way an end to achieve, but we

have the means to continue search for meaning

.

20th May lies ahead. It is much like an abyss which would embrace me even with a minute’s notice. I was a curious child and yes, I used to wait for that special day of the year. But the maturity that envelops you as your limbs are stretched, your cheeks are hollowed, and bones jut out of your neck, you begin to question: what does such a date mean to you?

When we are kids, we all want to grow up and do what the elders do but as we begin that “descent” from childhood to teenage and beyond, it becomes concrete that life, as we envisaged it earlier, is not as much fun.

There is a story behind every person, behind the growth of every person. I have narrated mine a number of times in the past and at its best, it is vivid but marked by morbidity of thoughts, of days, of life.

But this growth has inculcated in me a desire, to find a meaning behind every meaning fed to me. I see no end, but I have the means to make this search my end, my aim. I get frustrated as I try to analyze different facets of life and the complexities of a relationship that you have with yourself and thus, I begin to strive for an understanding. I look for meanings. I ask myself because the way to cure my inquisitiveness lies within me.

I tend to take myself very seriously sometimes and that is not required of me. I am an inconsequential being, with an affinity to use I’s, because I take myself seriously and that is not required of me.

20th May lies ahead. In my time zone, I have but a quarter of a day left before the three sticks merge for a second at 12 in the night. It is not a life changing point but it is marked as one and thus, I try to realize meanings, changes and the meanings behind them. After breathing so many breaths, surviving these many years, I can not touch upon a word to describe it all. And thus, I continue to look for a description, for a meaning.

And before you get tired(or are you already?) of my words, let me tell you what 20th May means to me. At the dawn of this day some many years back, I(I do tend to use I’s and I’s, but what other word would attribute to the seriousness I attach with myself?) was born. That is all.

.

*For Wordle #9 at MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie. Also linking it up with Open Link Monday at With Real Toads.

**And the depiction of 20th May is to fuel my desire for the meaning, and to keep on looking.

Image source