Poem about a noon

the sniff of the orange crisp air-
figs and the afternoon morose sigh-
vehicles so slow and so is this noon-
the yawns of utterly poor roads
almost cracking through the vertebrae of the moon-
the cracks of the woman- her waist, her lips 
dripping a secular motion- secular yet frizzy
with least interest- what do I call this?
the aftermath or the beginning-
a sestina or a pristine death.

P.S-Writing almost after a decade. 2022 was one happening year for me. Here am I wishing you all a happy new year!

Bare mornings

I started my day early
a bit early for seagulls to make sound
for neighbours to realize what the sunsets look like-
a bit early to see my hands and to think about their actions.

I started off my day early to think about the sand in my hands
and pink dahlias depressed and standing still.
What life must be for them?
This triangular air with single handed compost-
no motion happening.
perhaps the city is best when asleep.
The chater is quiet.  The banters are percolating.

                This hour is newly wed bride for the primroses to smile
but nobody watches it. Nobody sees the nude face of the morning. What do they offer now?
Or perhaps I am too early.

As the dawn sees her

POV- I imagined living in the Victorian Era and had a feeling to write a poem. Hence this came out.

The neighbourhood is a wet puddle.
Across the streets, I see the women having a camp-fire
whispering soft murmurs about the mundanity of life,
into the blue hemishphere
where stays a large apple- tree.
 The women of my town are a faint pear-
with whitest bosom and whitest eyes.

 Look,
the hourglass shapes have moved now- 
torn between the edges of languages,

one is cutting the rind of a lemon
while the other makes a lemonade.
They banter vicariously and live through the sky.
rust on their elbow, as if a second skin to their thighs.
   
  The women shaped as exhibitionist
gulping down a massive portion of tranquil shines:
They can't see.
They can't hear perhaps.
They have done the job
when the dark falls,
one word at a time-
one woman to another. 

The women are too fast to remember anything the next day.

Horizontal Mirror

M.Torrez

Mother,
I make fire.
from toe to toe-
Horizontal shivers.
Mother- you ask 'Who am I'?
I ask the same-
the inheritance of glory
is perhaps a groaning knock?

I am a walking grief-
a cotton swab dipped into a dangling hymn
an adjective which stands nude-
s
t
r
a
i
g
h
t 
      in  
parrallelism .
    Mother, what are these things around me?
These objects, people- fungus in pickles-
spit it out, immediately-
spit and spat-

You have an eye of an ocean yet you are all dry,
bearing negations for an absolute face of mine
you replicate me mother, or do i do you?
Is my face not enough?
Is my weakness too shallow?
Mother! Oh glorious victory-
You know all of it.
You do.
You do.
You do.

A prose- “Form”

The wound is where the hurt has lived and been nurtured. How do we plan to discard it now? 
Are we enough to understand the fragility of emotions- certainly we are. We are the sinners and the bearers of its entrop, of its magnanimous callous injury. We swallow pain each day and night. I wonder what does it become once it injects our bloodstream. Does it pinch and ache further? Or does it swirl in the air- like a thick cloud of a giant's saliva.The air must be lukewarm. With softer lotions of time for time must tear the air inside the chest. The heaviness must inflate further. Invisible sewing machines. The most intriguing part of human is perhaps his fear and love- imagination in paper. We perhaps always come back to aberrance. To ambuguity of life and people. We come back, eventually to nights with fallen jasmine on floors.

Update

Dear readers,

Often it happens that I am reminded by WordPress to blog here and then I realize do I still have readers here lurking through my mundane words? I know, I too need to catch up on so many lovely writers here that I have known since I started writing here and I definitely will. But…

I am grateful to announce that I have a poem up on Outlook India- the most prestigious magazine that I have read and enjoyed growing up. Here is the link to my poem- Outlook India.

If you are still interested in reading the poetry book that I published during the pandemic here is the link.

Crimson Skins- India

Crimson Skins- US

Available on Kindle as well.

Into the room of everything

Your clear eye is one such beauty
haunting for days - this body that dwells on it
your each visison- birds perching on my balconies
and not disturbing my burnt pancakes.
I see. I annihilate. I wash face.
I know what my grave shall be called - with one tree
and all about 'waiting for Godot'
This world may heal sometimes soon with it's funny pink sins
it's funny politics and gender of skies.
I must not speak thereafter,the tingles of auburn dirt
that fills my nostrils are too many, 
symmetrical and ferocious.
The closed drawers in my room chatters 
all about my loneliness
and nothing still infects me.
You- the one who sparks lucent moon into my breaths.
I say this this too.
the notions of morality and absurdism
tickling cellophene above our eyelids. 

In a fist

My father never knew my emotions honestly. Seldom do I write about him. He has nothing much to deliver yet he is an average participant. I would not blame him for the entire drowned city inside my head. Everything stays partial with me- a lotus decaying or a night shifting its paradigm. I hardly controlled anything- but the toes would outgrow always- they would not stop the impeding thrust to ingest the tangerine flavours. His constant punch to make me aware of everything is where I stopped knowing him- probably-  a constant gumption of moulds. Rustic elbows with disjointed pain- arthiritis .

A constriction of words flavoured with mediocricy is how I knew it-

But I tried. I tried learning in Sanskrit and other syntaxes. Vehement morose days swelled up in eyes. Lungs – punctured. Then we would often spent days on our dingy terrace, aquatic telephone lines disconnecting the shivers between us. I assume to float and probably I failed. Now, I have forgotten everything- the city departing, funerals marching forward and parks all well- lit even when it rained. I am unsure of this knot of emotions corrupting my clavicle still- a memoir of an old photographh speaking: uttering an untoched sentence.

Momentum of Language

Language. Who needs it? It’s nothing but a scattered pretty way of illusionary numbers. Romancing with minds and tongues. Shifting bones of vertigo sky. Across my white bare body and this vibrating fall—language stops existing suddenly. Linguistics is nothing but a way the syntax of my paper heart breathes. Water condensed, without any stabilizer. I understand I must stay happy as I have been asked. I must walk.

I must love and I must sleep. I understand I must chew my food a thousand times before it punches my gut to vomit a disappearing fever. But friend, life is more than this- more than survival, existence, wounds- more than interpretations. More than the yeast of existing . Swelled up library inside the eyes. We can not win anymore nor can we lose- it’s the language that laughs all throughout life- hiding underneath the shades of glory. It’s the language of abyss between the voids. To be or not to be. To celebrate or to loathe.

---

Buy my book- Crimson Skins

A conundrum

The opposite of hurt is not healing, rather- a distinctive synonym of becoming a vague object. Poached skin tones with multiple tars jammed on a tongue. A small shiver inside the handprint- the bruises not always becoming a temple- bell. They require a screenplay and observance of a sponge. Hurt is parallel to grief. Screeching veins spreads throughout the bedsheet and the bedsheet always remain jarring. We collect and put it all in a single bowl and wait for the doctor to arrive along with a pill and stethoscope. Does it help? Does it defy your existence? Your sorrow? Hope- a lament which people talk about is nothing but a soft matchstick burning from either end. Where does voice become visible? Flesh- so vulnerable yet covered in darkest colour. We want it to glow and glow hence we speak of lives, mundanity, love, and kindness but our body is nothing but a parenthesis or storage that covers everything missed upon.

On Collective sadness

What amazes me is the notion of sadness bringing us all human together. If we think deeply about it- we might find an insatiable quench to sit and share this massive grief. Instead, we circulate remarks about literature, art, and human minds walking downwards. Where do we then carry forward this collective sadness and grief? Do we spit and spat or do we think of it as a life lesson forever? There has to be an end. An end to this corollary of distinctive yet massive grief. This sadness which human collects and wear in disguise. We do take help from art, literature, but is that it? Is there more? Space- times. There is anticipation. Black redundancy of slipping emotions. Where are we that we are not able to hold them? Shall we sit on this grief? Shall we change the verb here? What should be done with this collective sadness dear friend? Is it ugly? Is it beautiful? Is it the first- born? Stringing wound floating inside the mind.

Link to buy my poetry book- Crimson Skins

Mundane words

Ayush Kalra

Fermenting the swan shaped neck-
the tears that merge into cerulean lake.
People name it- glorious sunset.
Mud holes and sweet limes.
People name everything they see,
They call names and give them back.
   Circulation of hopes and the nerves attaching to it.
Love- Hate.
What all do you see?
Ladies at work and men at bed.
Men at work and ladies all alone.
No new moon shines today.
Fermenting the loathed swan shaped body tonight.

Bare Noons-

the body is a loose powder
longing through the rooms,
vacant mountains of chills.
bare chest-
 a throbbing  slitting moan.
the moon kisses and watches over
linguistics of a body.
decoding cacophony of amorphous substance.
unwrapping a flower-
   the body is dream, you must say.
it slips and sticks to the wall-
a whorl of pink tongue. 
I sit and produce words during the daytime
as I watch over my window for a twig to be stuck to my throat-
 instead I have maroon dreams and floral nights -
sore limbs now,
sore words- I shift to a different paradigm,
I shift to lotus from rose.
The arrangement of bones has a purpose now.

The end of a lullaby

the shriek of my body,
a purple loose hanging moon
beneath the toes-
a shriek so wild
stretches through the carcass

I have nothing left to weep now
for the moon has taken a dip inside the river.
I hear my village burning,
and see people sleeping so quietly, so wildly
as if nothing ever happened.
A lullaby lost in a path-
mouthless,
a blue broken hemisphere.

What do I do with my limbs now?
How do I sit and regenerate in a porous night?

How have you been?

I do not believe in new years- a new beginning. I have a different mindset related to it and I do not want to sound gloomy but here I am to know how you all have been?

If I have missed some stunning work, I would love to read it. Let me know what are your goals, plans, habits etc for this month, this year, or anything which fixes in you in a good way. A reminder- that I am not talking about toxic positivity but anything which enhances a soft corner in your heart. Let me know in the comments.

I have given a theme to my this year- “Satisfaction”. I am trying to connect my works with the theme. It’s not a resolution ..because there is nothing like that, I guess. I believe in mindsets and habits rather.

Recently- I shared this issue of my newsletter here which throws more insight on this topic-

read maybe?

The Weekly Shine- a newsletter wherein I curate poetry, mindful lessons, soulful artworks- basically something for everyone. Come read and subscribe maybe?

Lots of love

Devika

The Old Body-

with chained ankles,

hush, thrilling lips,

a body floats inside my mind,

dwindling through the carcass,

old and vintage-

a mahogany river of crooked moonlight,

this body blooms and sinks at the same time,

uttering a blob of big sun-shaped tongue

emerging out,

emerging through the stains and walls

through veins and puddles.

this time itches now,

I have wounds all over my barren body

a body- now a pit of marks.

—————————————————————-

If you love reading my poems and works you might enjoy my book Crimson Skins. I can’t believe it has been an year since my book published and each time I hold my baby, I am choked with pride. You can get your copies on Kindle, Amazon, Pothi etc.

sharing links-

Crimson skins – US
Crimson Skins- POTHI
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