unsuitable

orange-tiled huts,
an embankment with an ice-cold
touch,

like the swish of air
beneath the door,
taking hold
over the ankles,
in the grip
of
a tightening resolve —

the scene of this stillness
is unsuitable
for my silver-
spooned, steel-proofed
bathroom,

adrift with
the violence of
hair-falls, slippery soaps,

and the languid heat of
a late summer’s threatening tone
in a lonely play.

.
© Anmol Arora 2018

Image source (Bathroom Windowsill by Una Sealy)
Linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads

***

I have been working on a new Insta handle for about 2 months 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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affaire de coeur

Bougainvillea by Terry DeLapp

hidden − alone − like a heart
come asunder − palash
drinks the heat of this sultry
day, painting the white into
reds, and a soft orange flame,
like a petal drying, on
a non-existent shore,

i pluck a new memory to be unveiled −
kaagaz ke phool −
lying awake, and hiding my trace
beneath the bed, of the previous dusk’s
reckoning − i smell of you,
and i smell of the night −

chameli drying on my chest
leaving aside all pretense,

hidden − i inhale, as
you come awake − your fingers riddled
in my hyacinth hair, my lips
blooming like a torn tulip bulb,

at least for this day.

.

…

Flowers and their symbolism:
Palash (Butea monosperma): Arrival of spring, blooming of love
Kaagaz ke Phool (colloquial tr. paper flowers) (Bougainvillea): Beauty, welcoming
Chameli (Jasmine): Love, romance
Hyacinth: Sincerity, constancy
Tulip: Love, cheerfulness, royalty

…

Bringing together lovemaking with the hint of its end, for dVerse Poetics, where the flowers are speaking in their beautiful tongue.

Edit: Linking it up with The Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads.

Contact me: Instagram, Facebook, Gmail

A Summer Day, A Righteous Right

loudspeakers laughing as the electricity is cut off

and the door to be thrust away from its hinges

to allow a wisp of the wind to course through, and

warm the already sticking skin, bewildered with

tears coursing down (I am drowning, in puddles of

sweat and noise and dust, this confusing love)

.

beep– beep– beep: I mimic the vehicles, I

can be a ventriloquist, or better a mime

copying actions in a frenzy of seconds to

sew myself away from boredom that which would

eventually turn the story upside down, how fun

to read words not meant for you, it is juicy

like the gossip among the clouds who are

on a strike against relief, against mercy

.

I am a hunchback, a monkey(a ta(i)l(e) is missing)

perusing the benefits of food and drink,

to shoo away the flies of action, ants of

angular articulations,

.

let me rise… up, up, up,

let me be with the space, that ceiling

which we gawk at from the land, so to loot

some respite from this heat burning within me

and out, shriveling the aspects of this day

I have yet to explore… all these days

I have yet to explore…

.

Image source

A Mid-Day Summer Dream|the Sun melts me…

the leaves, brittle by the hands of the sun

sway like a thirsty bird in the afternoon loo,

the streets empty of travelers, a distant voice

of screeching tires, on the melting coal tar

and the gurgling of coolers exhaling a breath

that sustains life, as June heightens into

a derogatory mark for the residents of city,

.

I let a beam of the celestial torch to hit me

and burn that spot where my fears hide

so that they dissolve, dissipate, rather

finding their place in some others’ abode

(I engulf selfishness, as the entire world)

.

– soon I retreat back to the insides as sweat

slithers along our fates, down my brow,

there is a news, I have received a provisionary

admission letter from a college managed by

a council under ministry of tourism,

the heat flushes my cheeks, I’m deranged

while making a decision of such propensity,

there is a solemn expression I see in me

twinkling in my eyes, for in order to

catch a dream, I have to shatter all others

and leave them combusted into fires of sun,

.

a day would come (if it would, my mortality

glares at me, while the living alludes me)

when to look back, I wonder what I’d find:

the dead remains of those dreams I left out

or a face that is of me, beaming and mocking,

as the sun sets down nowhere when I’m asleep

.

Image source

Cold Water

bubbling

against summer’s heat

cold water

~

sweating

sucked up by the sun

first gulp of water

~

ash-laden tongue

seeking coolness of water

a fountain mirage

~

noon mirage

vision of nectar

spilled on road

.

* For Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Special # 61.

Photo source