61. The Hounds of War
When slimy cockroaches invade your premise
And make hell of your homespace;
When smirking maggots munch at your flesh
Chomp at you like scavengers on leaves
And pay no heed to your screams or pleas;
When the suit-men of ivory towers
Paint flowers on gravels and call them gardens
Or claim a genocide the Second Coming;
When the lowest of the low arrogate themselves
As the salt of the earth, the true cheese of life
Holier than Hawking, classier than whisky and wine,
And disguise themselves as truth or theory, while being
Menace to all things merry; Must one then knout the hounds of war
Before freeing the chains and setting the animals
Upon them all—
The sadists, the suit-men, their children
And of them what remains.
For bad things to end one must breed worse
And the sons of Satan be exiled with such great force
That worms and peasants must quiver at each breath
Their love of life tenfolded by fear of death.
The hard-men must triumph over the suits
And enforce covenants by force or fraud
Crushing opposition narrow and broad
Until no sign or semblance in the land remains
Of their oppression that once took place.
When seeds of revolt burst into song
It matters not who is right and whom wrong
What matters is the bourgeoisie strung from the nape;
Their pets and parents murdered or raped,
The sweet swishing of the guillotine on foes and mates
Or anyone who dared oppose the law of the new state
Until the hammering of society into good shape;
For when the smell of revolution is in the air,
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
62. The Human Commodity
Wry, wry, Feet on the carpet Face flushed to the sky Permanently scarred With the painted smile-
Arms that pulverize Shrugged subtly aside As they humbly decline to Thrash the life out of The social frenemy, due to Goodness of heart.
But above all - a cadence to please To lie in melodies To simper up the ladder And condescend to lesser-thans With their useless anxieties.
63. Wordsworthian Child
Mouth agape, eyes of rotten grapes
Skin fiendish pink
No paedophile’s kink
Stomp-a-trot, stomp-a-trot
Squeak-squeak wail the boots
Perpetual the chatter of milk tooth
“Daddy dance with me dance with me”
Sighing, I agree
To the prisons of parenting.
64. Castrated Mind
The castrated mind is a curious thing:
It blanks and bottles and people-pleases
Weasels into the words of zealots
Sheep-simpers to the racist shepherd
And belies in docile allegiance
Even to the emotionally aware
The secular, the kindly, the fair—
Those poor women and non-Byronic men
Who dared repair the castrated mind
With dreaded love and care.
This is, alas, an impossible task.
For the castrated mind stands for naught—
It cannot know nice from not-nice
When it glorifies flora, fauna and trauma alike:
Thinks like a whirlwind, speaks like a tree
And bends over backwards to please
Since to refuse itself to anyone
Is not considered right.
And beware the day it stands for itself!
The day it sees its emasculation—
For the unbridled rage, the pissy-parade
The bottle exploding with angry champagne
Will necessarily have no meaning.
For when the castrated mind
Never knew what it stood for
Which hill will it pretend to die on,
And where shall it plant its red flag?
65. Lockdawns
Much to the delight of the rancid wind
Slipping out and through doors like unkind ghosts
She rose from the covers, weary and cold
And folded her pale sheet, tattered in holes.
Cleansed with paste and floss her young tongue bloody
Spitting in the basin her vows of youth
Painted foam on face momentarily,
Before by water and force tried to smooth.
When the velvety sun broke the black
And tired sounds reentered the room
Her sticks delivered her from rage
In the windowed flat that felt like a cage.
66. Deity and the Deep Sea
Between the angel that holds half my soul
With the delicacy of a Fabregé egg
As if worth more than five pence,
And the expanse of nectar water
An ebb tide that recedes
Tempting a dip before it ponders to leave
I stand, stranded on quicksand
Clutching a skull in hand like a prince
Drowning in problems of privilege
That everyone would baulk at or scorn,
Swaying in the wind like ripe corn.
P.S. I hid behind the moniker of TINTA since the account was opened on Instagram. Truth be told, this has always been my natural impulse. If I had my way, none of my works would be attributed to me. I write a lot of miserable stuff, which I don’t want attributed to my character. I am proud of my writing, but it is also comfortably the worst of me—where my most cynical, nihilist and antisocial tendencies come to fruit.
For a while, I hoped I could hide behind TINTA forever. Perhaps anonymity is cowardice, but it has always been my impulse. But people tell me there’s nothing sustainable about the moniker strategy—that I must put my name, centralize my content, ensure I take credit for everything in a brutal industry, blah blah blah.
So, briefly, let me introduce myself: I am Neil Nagwekar from Mumbai, India.
I don’t plan on abandoning the moniker TINTA though. Because there is a story behind TINTA, and I think it will take quite some time for it to be completed.
Comments