of waiting

naked. i sit in the bathroom, waiting for my needs to dry and shrivel so that I can take control of my breath again and proceed with my shower. listening to Cyndi Lauper, i wait. i am merging with my immediate emptiness. yet, I keep on waiting…

waiting for things to normalise back to their abnormality. waiting for that dairy milk cake to rise and collapse and harden and soften with time. waiting for ice cubes to melt and burn my tongue further and blister. waiting for the pain to recede and waiting for it to come back. waiting for the silence before the scream to extinguish itself and waiting for the impending scream to crack open the earth. waiting for the food to pass the intestinal tract and waiting for the next unsatisfactory meal.

waiting for the room to start becoming my skin and enclosing my wronged limbs and waiting for it to break me to nothing. waiting for the world to open a star-shaped space for me and fill me with moonlight. waiting for my heart to collapse beneath the weight of my consuming world. waiting for the hunchback sky to turn into that particular hibiscus-red and fall down on me. waiting for the heat to penetrate my shadow skull and open flowerless graves within. waiting for a song that would escape my lips and take my voice and bury it into the ploughed riverbed. waiting to be kissed by a nightmare and fucked by an inconsequential god.

waiting for the wait to end.

.
© Anmol Arora

Image source (Tyeb Mehta (b. 1925) Diagonal Series signed and dated ‘Tyeb 76’ (on reverse) oil on canvas 44 x 35 in. (111.8 x 90.2 cm.))

 

Advertisement

death of a kiss

unearthed trinkets of lust
taken by my lips —
bitten —

bitumen of the roads left
behind —

quick-quirky-beats rise quickly
like moon-quivering-tides.

drink one on me, through me,

as i

taste the memory of your
kitschy kiss,
hear a silver sun’s silence,
left undisturbed,

ululating — dying.

.
© Anmol Arora 2018

For dVerse Quadrille # 64
Image source (An interesting reproduction and interpretation of Klimt’s The Kiss)

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

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

Sigh

wavelength of a night

as she hums her elegy-

even silence sighs

.

Image source

Where is Peace!?

source

peace is in this silence of the night,

also in the voice of these keys (pit-pat-pit),

being attacked by my grievous fingers,

tapped ruthlessly again and again

.

peace is in the call of house lizards,

their chirping-like sound, abound (tchak… tchak),

disturbing, yet musical and rhythmic,

unfound talent, hidden behind clocks,

.

peace is in this small skipping insect,

the name of which I do not know (small & BLACK),

as it crawls, and walks, and hops,

getting invisible in the dark from time to time,

.

peace is in the solitude of this time,

as the city sleeps and those who stay awake (nocturnal),

the owls and the bats, and insomniac,

lost in the reverie of self-indulged plight,

.

peace is everywhere you find it,

even in those burdened heart beats (thump-thump),

and the wails of the tethered soul,

just find it, and it is going to be yours

.

* I didn’t expect to write something like this, but ended up doing so. Written in consideration of dVerse Poetics.