absolution

the damage that i have done —

shards of glass – precautions –
objects that instill confidence,
blade-sharp, plied twice-soft,
images of white-red before
my eyes, i think the only
way in is perhaps the way out,
to hurt and wound all that
is concrete and replacable,
foregoing the safety of soul
that has taken the beating,

i think of the innocent faces/
phases that belonged to me
once, distorted, in shambles
now, looking like a cold wind’s
harm on a hyphenated pause,

the pause lasting longer than
its due requirement, the pain
drinking its potion to bear itself,
leaving a scar of undefined,
carefully created proportions.

it’s not in satisfaction derived from plucking tears
that do not appear
but in the reacquisition of their absence
that i achieve my comforts —
material, magnanimous, marauding trusts
levied on a wretched man’s broken self.

the hurt that i have caused is my own
if not the rest.
and i figure that my unbecoming is
something that i have left,
as the youth creeps towards
its deep end.

.

© Anmol Arora

Image source (Hurt by Masako Simmons)

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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.
Image source

***

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.

uncanny lessons for children

I

close your small velveteen ears, darling,
don’t pay heed to the waste of voices
and their restful, rabid resemblance
with your callous crimes, and dither from
repentance, free every broken song
and write an equal-footed murmur
with your sagacious mouth — sewn shut —
all your comeuppance unstrung on time.

~

II

never drink from the well of knowledge,
for it heralds the end of peace, and
keep hostage, the calamity of
your condition — dreadful purple and
slated fates, furtive in a fragile
dance — a duel between demand and
need for self-effacement, bringing forth
the wreckage of woebegone endings.

~

III

fingers for eating, lips for smiling,
cheeks to be always flushed the right shade
of painted roses — pink and red and
every shade of bloom, flourishing in
the din of hollowed-out bones — tendons
that stick out in felicitation
of life — your awareness has come to
light — switch off your mind before it tries.

~

.

#8linepoems with #9syllables, originally posted on my new Insta handle (Pt. 3 would be uploaded today): @anmol.ha
Linking it up with Poetry Pantry at PU.

Disclaimer: Not really meant for children. Ha!

Image source: Self Portrait on the Operating Table by Edvard Munch

***

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.

to evanesce

.

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.*
My lips curved to the angle of my contrition; my bones
dry like sandpaper — I refrain from facing the sight
of my slow-breaking; I shade this night, and map it out
on my sea-green scars. Their wig-donned smiles abandon
me, to gawk at my graven loss, paying a hefty load for
the skein of my destiny.

I am somebody; I have something to do with shattering.
My ears bend to the tremor of voices that hearken to
the shell-shore of Calypso — ‘Shame,’ they call out in
my cerulean-blue sequined nerves. ‘Pity’, they resound it
through their cherry-twine jowls. They bury me in stones
and pull at the weight of my guilt, avowing their fealty for
the passing of my duality.

I am nobody || I am somebody
to evanesce — I only need be.

.

*From Sylvia Plath’s Tulips

For With Real Toads’ Wordy Thursday, where we are starting off with a borrowed line from another poet’s work and Wordle 363 at The Sunday Whirl — a very raw third draft (with the closing couplet added to create a semblance of completion).

Diana Copperwhite, Atomic, 2014 (Image source)