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.

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where silence stays

on stilts, I walk through the haze where silence stays,
there’s a trail of blood I follow towards the night, where
words are without sound and only the shrieks are heard,
another one is hunted, another one is sighing in arms
of death which comforts better than the living can do,

a body is found in the swamp of ignorance, indifference,
his lips are sealed with a long needle of fear, a remnant
of a thread hanging by his lower lip, in an eternal wisp
of a smile, I tug at it to open, hear the words of the dead.

I ache to know what is in silence, amid the numbing noise
of an inhumane blow, of a machete, of a piercing bullet.

.

I wrote a piece for the prompt at dVerse last night but careless that I am, I forgot to save it and ended up losing it. It was oddly melancholic for me because I was satisfied with my words for the first time in months. Today, I tried writing again(in long hand to minimize the risk of losing my words yet again) to raise my voice with all others at dVerse Poetics, in favour of freedom of speech and expression, and against all forms of censorship and forced silence. This piece is not a political commentary; just based on the idea of how I feel for those who dare to speak.

Image source: Low Haze at Dusk by Elaine Jones

Sightless eyes

An Illustration by W.T. Benda

my expression of disinterest

lined in my eyes entranced,

and agonized by furtive faces,

to express a wonder, at how

they hide the mayhem within,

I, on the other hand, I whip

out wicked words, that have me

blinded to see sun shine black,

in an eternal realm of lips that

smile back and forth toothy grins,

 .

I can’t unsee those gay noses,

erect in a prideful posture,

nor those tight eyebrows

chiding me for my quandary,

I am blind to see gangrene

of my skin that sheds in peels,

burnt up whole, heaving fumes,

only making each glow golden,

in the periphery of vision, of

my sightless eyes, that only can see

.

For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads Fireblossom Friday Prompt. I will be here and there but I would find my way to your blog to read your wise words.

.

I have been quite inactive lately. The thing is that my exams are approaching and I was devoting the month of February towards my studies. I was doing alright but these last three days haven’t been much productive. My mind started playing games with me and well, I lost. As for writing, I am quite deserted of the words. Tension and unusual stress and even carelessness sometimes intrude my conscious to keep me from paying attention to time and make me just float in the frothy oceans of seconds.

I am not going to be around much… though, I can not be sure of anything. I gave myself a free day today so that I could get back to concentrating on what is more important from tomorrow onward. I have more or less two weeks left to do what I can do. And now that statement has quite disturbed me. I am quite a peculiar being, you might say.

Well… on a good note, I uploaded a poem(I had written in November) on you tube. I just made slides of written word on one single background and made a video of it. I know that that is absurd, but I felt like doing so:

A Mad Tale of a Crying Bunny

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”

“Not again, my dear bunny, you are now grown up. You must become responsible now,” his mother chided him.

“Sorry mom, I can’t have breakfast. I need to go” He hurried away from the earthy house.

“Son…” her mother called but he was not to be stopped and thereby, he leaped over the rain puddles, and crouched below the fences, and went away to where he was meant to be.

And he reached the destination, where was waiting the most sensual cow he had ever seen. He shivered from within fantasizing and sniffed over his arms, so as to check if his perfume was working.  Stylish, as he was, he went towards her and said in a sexy voice, “Sorry Madame, I am late.”

“Moo.”

“Sorry!?” he asked puzzled.

“Moo.”

“What, you do not like me. You haven’t even talked to me. And you liked me on that dating website.” And he broke into tears.

“Moo,” the cow echoed her opinion and left him wetting his whiskers and looking at her with a glum expression.

* For Wednesday Short Story Prompt.