6. Widowhood
Straps like serpents on calves,
Sneaking skyward from shoes.
Marks may remain like canes.
Pimpled bruises ripped asunder
And holes on faces coloured
In haste. Mourning paints on lips.
Hat, tilted, to the wilted.
Necklines, navels shrewdly seen
From sobered attire.
Try to entice teary eyes.
Trade coffee over coffins.
I am the fairest in the land.
Bells toll like eager bees.
Time to hunt for empty fingers,
Empty lives, empty hands.
I am armed, prepared.
Charging into combat!
7. Young Sam
His face redder than apples
Salad limping from chin
Voice comically high,
To which Sam replied
With the widest grin
Before daddy’s ring
Met his face with force.
Cracked a milk tooth;
Ended his youth.
“Nancy boy,” he muttered.
Went off to work
Leaving behind clutter,
And a bundle of tears
On Young Sam
And his daddy’s wife.
The ring lingered on his cheek;
Branding him for life.
8. Ars Poetica
Between toddlers and teens, between Phlanx and Pixlee,
Endowed with schemes to optimize and make bank,
Cometh the muse of Mammon, replete in the Gram—
Through verses with keywords and formulaic lyrics
Disguised in aesthetic—which, as long as they rhyme,
Seem perfectly fine—so get with the program
Let Horace and Neruda locate the backseat,
For the focus of locus has changed its track;
Consumers now monarchs, poets their sweet-treats
In a century where the commodification
Of art is complete.
9. Red Blade
Death no longer loomed in shadows.
It stood in hoods, mounted on hooves, dipped in
Guts and grime of myself and mine.
She saw those leering and licking lips.
When violated ends welcomed her with open kisses,
What larger design in fright?
She clenched her late husband’s blade tight
And avowed her stance, one final night.
10. Quarantine
My daughter saw my frail, broken bones hidden in wrinkled and folded flesh
With eyes that hated, and yelled me away to supper.
I was too spent to fight for my right.
Munched cold cereal on weary jaws.
Food forcibly crammed down to keep this old bag of blood
Churning till comes with open arms obits and Christ.
Somehow shoved it into a stomach that forever stayed in nausea. Hid away a gag.
Those liars and quacks told me to enjoy the rest of my life.
Grandkids at the dining table kept careful eyes away from me,
Gossiped about the corona and the time of quarantine.
About being prisoner at home, prohibited to roam,
How it was the worst hell, how they would never wish it on anyone
For whom they deemed well.
I was too spent to fight for my right.
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.
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