“i am done with you,”
the moon said to the poets
and disappeared.
who will now take the shape/size/stigma
of a wiling metaphor,
for the face of the beloved,
for the lip-service of madness,
for the tongue-tied tears of memories,
for the handheld company of solitary souls,
gazing through a window-screen
at a moon-less sky?
.
© Anmol Arora
A 55-worded verse for Weekend Mini-Challenge: Strange News at WRT
the mauve-toned sky picks
and plucks at my love’s languid pace,
turning a shade of brinjal-blue
and carrot-red, as suns and rains
drown each other out, before
Venus’ chariot of callous-crowns —
i have seen kisses in the shapes
of a soft-pink roundness,
(a bulging sourness) of falling grapes,
i have seen lips that go up and up,
and down and down, like a loitering
lover, in search of a finicky warmth
(just to belong) in unrelenting arms,
i have eaten morsels of bodies, drank
myself to the satisfaction of projectile-
juices, (parched in deserts) of skin-types,
i have kissed thighs of another order,
and written psalms of sleep at many
arbors, (struggling) beneath a few
forgetful breaths.
let me sleep now for a second or two,
(for your sake)
before i slip through your lips
and become whole again.
.
© Anmol Arora
For ‘Shortcake, waffles, berries and cream .. February!‘ at With Real Toads, where Sanaa inspires us with a poem by Joseph O Legaspi
drinking a night’s naivety
down my throat,
my tongue seared at your lips,
in a ploy of breaths,
of tastes exchanged
in a whiskey-gulp.
i bundled my skin together
at a kiss’s knotted-end,
i let my head fall down
the vacuum of your voice.
.
© Anmol Arora
For dVerse Quadrille #73
Image source (Dean Rossiter Abstract Painting – “Final Fatal Kiss” – abstract painting)
pulling and pushing
into each other,
apart from each other,
the red becomes mellow, and
pink dreams arrive in a wave
of a desert storm,
i remember my home
through your tongue,
i remember my death
at your teeth’s artistry.
like a fly, i wait at the doorstep
before seeking to enter
at the exit.
.
© Anmol Arora
Read screwed and screwed (ii)
Image source (Reverie by Richard Taddei)
waking up,
riding through
a dream’s galloping pace,
i wonder
if i bypassed my need
to be touched,
strung like a kite
against the face
of a shy-sky —
his eyes an empty-colour of opportunity, my skin,
a canvas bled —
the night lingered
like a lizard, in the thrall of a fly,
hovering over my lips.
© Anmol Arora
A 55-er for Art FLASH at WRT
Read screwed
Sketch
Remember, one day,
While sitting at my table
You sketched on a cigarette box
A tiny plant
Come and see,
That plant has bloomed!
— Gulzar, tr. Pavan K. Varma
the box stayed closed as if
hiding a lost thought
from another time, when
your words would settle
like sediment
at the bottom
of my breath,
as i read you out loud,
flicking ash from one wrist,
upending the goblet in
gesticulation
from another.
you draw words
like those vessels
bursting forth in the kitchen,
strung to a high note
of despair & hope,
your love speaks to me,
even though i have barely scratched
the skin of that mischievous marauder,
and yet i feel i know, as if
from another life, another rhyme.
you free my closed thoughts,
and water seeds of my silence
as i sing you and praise you
to myself.
.
© Anmol Arora
For A Tribute to Poets of Our Time at WTR. I am paying my tribute to one of my favourite poets and lyricists, Gulzar. Gulzar is 84 now. So, whenever I talk about him and his sprawling work with anyone, I only hope that we wring it out of him — his poetic brilliance, his sensibility, his love, and all he has offered to us for decades — in this lifetime.
the first drops felt like invisible threads
dangling down the sky in swift, translucent
colours, wetting the epidermis of the earth,
in the pattern of an old comforting habit,
worn-out and bare, as a cold wind against
the torn paths of my seldom-used lips.
you felt like a stolen figure of hope —
a sudden departure from white noise
in a vast welcoming gesture of your open
arms, your face flushed in a lightning
roar — your voice grew distant, and yet
your luminous eyes stayed in the dark.
i shared the softness of my limbs, loose
muscles, hollow bones, all the broken scars.
.
© Anmol Arora
Also read, devirginating desire and a twilight story
Linking it up with The Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads, where I am hosting and paying homage to Mary Oliver and David Bowie
Image source (B. Prettau – WINTER RAIN)
