phantasmagoria

the last night’s bemoaning touch still speaks
in its streamlined, suggestive tunes, to gather
support for its resonance, while whistling
its siren melody in the dirty swathes of light.

its own nature has taken a toll on its slighted
health with the calming chill of a crestfallen
rain. dreams beside the bulwarks of fantasies

gather all that is left of a tattered peace flag.
the grief is not that the steps were numbered,
but that they weren’t counted, to begin with.

it grows inward – in-in – perhaps to reach its
middle, its beginning, where all becomes one.

the trunk of the old banyan has adhered to
the loss like none other, unlike my eyes that
widen, still, at the prospect of a sting from
the mouth, that speaks of those lived glories.

but how do i strive to remember how to fly,
when i did not know how, to begin with?

~

© Anmol Arora 2018

For Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 367, Camera Flash at With Real Toads, and Poetry Pantry at PU.
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***

I have been working on a new Insta handle for over a month now, for literary and creative posts: @anmol.ha.
For contact, you can reach out to me through my multiple profiles, enlisted here.

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a speculative turn of reality

Robert Mapplethorpe, Flower With Knife, 1985 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

 

sprigs and wigs go hand in hand
in this land of pedicured fantasies –

chocolate dreams waft out of bloody maries
(a proletariat comeuppance of the burgeoning
bourgeoisie)

no one tastes the animal blood, no one the earth’s bounty,
hungry and drunkards are of one kind,

rainbows spiral out of control,
and kill millennials (aka aliens)
in their soft-cornered
tucked-in beds,

age reverses into itself,
time sticks to a legal quagmire –

murders’ divorce nullified, spoken of like Neverland
portobello treats,
unyielding-

this is the land of the forlorn and the free,
take a swig
and get going.

.

A relatively shortened piece for the Spec Fic poetry prompt at With Real Toads. As fictions are most often modeled after reality, so is this verse.

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not to be the night when I lick my fingers

it was not to be the night when I lick my fingers,
you laughed at me, chortled at the way I spilled
everything on the canvas of the sky. a roundlet
of onion stuck in our conversation, our poetry.

I remind you of a pie you were to make for me,
and I worry today if I am an irksome ingredient,
like those peppercorns in your vadas that you
spit away saying you find them ground better,

but I am this whole, not a powder of intimacy,
I am a dripping stick-kulfi that coats desires,
I am the extra spice that burns your words,
I am just not a bullet in the index of the menu

that you skip over and come back to, because
I am affordable and easily available today, even
if I come out to be not what you really wanted.

after all,

it is not to to be the night when I lick my fingers,
invisible tears emerge on downtrodden cheeks,
painting colorless sky grey and blue. a julienne
of a fantasy is shattered, to become my poetry.

.

For dVerse Poetics.

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Tempest of Life

there was nothing, to stop the tempest, which has arrived,

a breath of veracity, kissing my throat, gripping my soul,

flaking the past, the withered leaves of memories blown away,

horses begin to neigh, and chortle at stances brought up,

drawing circles of circles, till when the heart tears up,

for the beans of opportunities are spilled, I once had,

clogged blood now run through veins, clotted on pale skin,

it matters not what is lurking, behind my severed shadow,

remaining are the ashes, aftermath of an eruption called life,

wielding the spirits of struggles, at every bend in journey,

I am left smothered with a slithering skin of tomorrow,

a fantasy worded, but never coming alive, just passing by

.

This piece is written, inspired from Dada and Random poetry. I had written twelve separate ten-word verses/lines and through a random series generator, positioned them accordingly. It is an interesting way to write. If you are interested and write something this way, do link it back to me. I’d be glad to read it. And if you have any questions, do ask me.

A little confession, I cheated a bit… changing a few words(only a few) to make some sense out of it all and of course, the punctuation is to be managed. 😀

I am tagging it as the post for 6 November for NaBloPoMo. And I am also linking it up with dVerse OLN.

Also, please leave a link to one of your posts in your comments. It makes it easier for me to visit you all. 🙂

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Looking for an emerald…

Travelling between

the thin line of

reality and fantasy,

looking for an emerald

that resides in me,

.

I stumble through distant paths

get burnt by dragon’s tongues,

 I climb the mountains

to see no sun

but be struck by lightning

in search of something

that is nowhere

but inside me,

 .

I dwell in darkness

feast on my own dead skin,

split open my eyes,

looking for that island

where I think the stone is;

 .

fantasy becomes reality

when I last return home,

and find some drops

falling down my open eyes,

they glint with a distinct sheen,

and I realize,

they are the dear stones,

I was looking for,

in the realm of fantasy,

 .

all the time,

them being overlooked

by my heart,

but present

in my own reality.

*Written in response of dVerse Mirage/Fantasy prompt.