time capsule

all these years erased, memories faded
to blots of ink&dust (rewritten and smudged

in/by a whirlwind of a mind)

nothing is real (nor unreal) in an unchanged sun’s
beckoning light, that falls cold
on the fullness (red pulp &orange rind) of my ripe skin.

this air is not the air that carries
voices &smells across the plateau of another time.

years that were gone/erased —

i never left, never became
a person (more than a hollow bone &pain)
never knew of my left side from right —

as i enter the body
i left behind,
it opens —

dreams drained of any colour, swallowed portions
of rotting needs, all figure in my deadpan speech,

all slow motions to a dead end, as in a little disk of a film,

b&w, sepia, deepening into monochrome lines,

breathing, talking, ageing
but not alive.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (The Past is Present by Ellen Brook)

Linking it up with my prompt for dVerse Poetics on Portals

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what is the colour of black?

black is the sound of a phone call
through hazy lines, that keeps on
ringing — delayed response,
stopping short of despair — its greys
subdued, in the harsh daylight.

black is the smell of fresh blood, lip-
shaded hurt that keeps on aching,
rising — tendrils of lust reaching out
for a dark, dark touch — i’ve wondered
if i can rise to the height of burning.

black is the nail-paint — matte, you
said — it makes my fingers look long-
err — these short sardonic evenings
to gather at the shore, monochrome
boats returning to a long night’s door.

black is the imprint of a stranger —
shadows and sighs, desire held aloft,
succumbing to these charms — my
hurt getting wider, my lies deeper, as
hopes trickle down in half-streams.

black is the taste of your smile — sly,
shy, standards apart — white masks
falling from our eyes, to see the shape
of nothingness, its skin we wear unto
our hearts, like a hole stretched apart.

i see black remorse — no spectrum
to measure its length and width —
a world missing, where i could be singing
to the clouds, and they would pour down
all the colours, remembered and lost.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (Abstract Painting by Ad Reinhardt; © 2018 Estate of Ad Reinhardt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

Written for my prompt at dVerse on Shades of Black. Don’t forget to check it out.

spring of lust

Evening Storm on Market St. by Jeremy Mann

and i am tracing the spaces
your lips covered/caricatured
on my sunshine skin —

my lips blooming&bursting
this spring of lust, bereft of stars,
while i look for my own loss
in the dark.

the roads are endless in this city
of loss,
but my beginning is its own end.

where do i go to seek the poetry
of things? how can i ever
make this night last?

.
© Anmol Arora

Day 4
(Inter)National Poetry Month

the loss of agency

keeping up with timelines of loss —

the cold-handed warmth
of a touch, where the waist meets
the censure of modesty —

small-sectioned, covered
half-inched skins, neat-folded
and soft-edged,
curved, light-bearing,
pinched between the nails,

silver-glinted.

the early nights (touch) take something
from all of us.

.
© Anmol Arora 2018

Image source (A Munch-Gogh Parody)
For dVerse Quadrille # 67

moving on

 

you are lost, as i lost
in your loss.

the seas of time have come ashore,
flooding and taking away all that
remains —

you were once there, drinking
the moon wine (it is you who
brought me the white for a late
dinner), and addled potions of
a lone star at my lone window,

it’s at the end, that it all began,
the turbulence of words (said
and unsaid) created voids, built
of a few nights’ fantasized storms,

you made me see the fire-glass
that only showed your visage,
your eyes growing pit-wise, you,
yours only – form and facsimile –

and i knew that i did not have to
leave, because you were not there,
never meant to be, and so it was —

a singular bulb fuse that flickered
out, into the emptiness of the room.

~

© Anmol Arora 2018

More of a frustration than a heartbreak — For dVerse Poetics
Also linking it up with The Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads
And I somehow found something to go with it. Ha! Image source (Light Headed 3 by Leah Saulnier)

***

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.