resisting self-appropriation

the demarcation of identities may become
concrete beyond any measure of trust,
suggesting a clear-cut boundary (line out of control)
set with laced edges for an open-field view of
all the action, where stars rupture, mind swells
and foot-long visiting lists and eager spectators
wait for an epiphany in their limited visage,
or form, or expression —

i could light my body, turn paper into a wildfire,
stone into an insolent air, and turn my named
references back to their semicircular beginning,
without the complexity of politics of my body
or desire, obstructing the moon to rise in its tiding,
leading to a vasectomy of all craft.

there are seeds that grow without the spurt,
some pollen have a similar quality of disdain
for birth,

and i know that i cannot open
the undisclosed aftermaths of attention
depleted into this sin, or the afterword of joy,
to become pen and ink and words.

i fuck up like a fucked up alarm clock
(going cuckoo has cuckooed and gone)
springing to its climax at inopportune
times, when even time cannot be shut-
off, visions silenced, and this extravagant
search for a home in the buried remains
of self-hood finally discarded off in
neural pathways and cardiac tunnels.

an individualized treachery is preferred
over  a displayed form of acceptance, with
its soft-toned and hard-knelling voice
that thinks that just the right tone would
change the facets left unexplored, deep
in the recesses, way away from light, because
that is all they are, in the eye of the storm
that won’t bring me down or go away on its own.

do not worry about me, do not worry
about my fiefdom of lust and loss,
or my faces split open one by one,
little by little, without hurt and pain,

as the death’s wagon parks at my retina,
harnessed by my sleepless eyes,
and i wake, and i wake, and i breathe,
galloping through, breaking away
from all the signs.

.

© Anmol Arora 2018

I wonder if the intersection of self-appropriation and poetry suggests a kind of depravity. Nonetheless, it is for me a kind of resistance to even consider the same — it is supposed by the experience of letting it be the subject as well as the object of observation. Perhaps “my act of understanding” is flawed but it is as honest as it could be in the current struggle. Is it failing the internalized resistance or is it resisting the resistance?!

For With Real Toads’ Weekend Challenge — quite a challenge indeed;
Linking it up with Poetry Pantry at PU as well.

Image source (id Painting 27, 2015 by Mark Wallinger)

At least, we have Chopin and Brigitte Engerer’s playing available online.

***
For contact, you can reach out to me through my multiple profiles, enlisted here.