Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Debopriyaa Dutta Apr 2020
we shift with unease, view & movement obstructed,
in this dingy apartment, no room to breathe
earning our daily bread, while hunch-backed
bones aching, eyes blood-shot, bellies soft-
slaving on rented machines that measure your footing
among the ranks of a populace doomed since the birth of nyarlathotep
whose claws are still sunken deep into the chasms of the rich
(are you hollow & golden? money, money, money, they clamour)
the artist, at the mercy of the beast, paints inane landscapes with words devoid of meaning
(while we sink deeper into the quicksand of poverty)
invisible, yet breaking our backs, forgoing food for reaping profits for another

you're used, I whisper
as I bristle with impotent anger while brandishing my servitude
my dreams lay packed inside a paper bag of acrylics
brushes bigger than my dwindling self-esteem--------

the poor weeps: their wasteland of false dreams are wilted, decayed
the dead April sun shines on a seemingly abandoned city -
the rich feasts, lamenting the dearth of pheasant meat,
while we scavenge off the scraps that litter their backyard.

the curtain falls,
they laugh, perching on our exoskeletons

the manure for the civilizations that were, and are to come.
Debopriyaa Dutta Apr 2020
it seems that the only antidote to the poison of existence is to write. to write, like our forefathers did - purposeful seclusion, months of trance-like writing, like a murderer maddened by the idea of salvation - writing, with ink-stained fingers, aching joints on the same old, trusty typewriter; writing, while wallowing in the deepest pits of despair, stuck inside a shabby room, dishevelled with books unread and re-read countless times…

to witness the act of writing - be it a staged enaction, wherein  an artist just slips his malleable soul into the garb of the prophet - to witness the act itself is a travesty, an ache on the roof of one’s mouth: out of reach, foreign, uneasiness swirling. nothing soothes, or quite imparts the strength to digest reality like the simulated sound of a virtual typewriter - the old, familiar clang that sustained generations of kindred souls, the tolling of the bell that eclipsed the knell of death, of betrayal, of a life cut short by cruelty, of unrequited love, of angst, of abuse - that of others and the self.

our modern machines that make life so easy, appear as a hindrance, an obstacle to the realization of my true self. or is it just incompetence, meandering as un-bloomed fantasies, that have been thwarted by none but my own futile sense of pride, which, in the very end, is nothing, but a pile of dust, that glints in the sunlight, and appears like the first pearls of dew-like snow?

beauty seems to be the only parameter for any semblance of human emotion we are willing to spare for another - beauty, or rather the bastardization of beauty, has rendered us barren, so dreadfully ugly. beauty consumes those who fawn upon it, destroys worlds, invades peaceful colonies, robs the poets of sleep, and urges the beguiled to sin.

my disfigured mind, once a slave to beauty, has broken its shackles from its dastardly regime. in the process, I've had to encounter my own ugliness - both without and within - bloated egos of the world that match my bloated skin - but it is dissatisfaction that I’m bursting with. dissatisfaction at the absence of prodigious blood in my veins, the kind that can foretell worldly events, conjure multiverses, concoct reservoirs of colors undreamt of, and feel the fabric of the world, the way one obtusely feels their own skin shielding their inner darknesses. ennui mingles with narcissism, flowers bloom at the edge of deserted lakes - the forest nymphs weep and wail under the blood-red moon, and the lovers die, without loving one another - alone, forlorn, their death a meaningless crease in the fold of the universe.

staring down at the unimpressive rising and falling of the telltale buttons - the very mechanism that allows me to stay afloat - I choke with tears that do not quite justify the source of my misfortune (perceived?). the faint, dull wail of the automation keeps me warm, but the sudden silence fills the home, no, just an apartment, with thunderous, ominous vulnerability. my bones ache along with the foundations of the house - the parakeets have made a nest among the polluted shrubberies, unlike their usual design to avoid large, empty cities. they screech , in imitation of my acute helplessness, mocking my hapless complaints, rendering me completely alone, while being surrounded by blood of the most coagulated, and thickest kind.

the neighborhood cats feast upon leftovers, as I look into the window of a world unexplored , ridden with darkness visible, and demons that admire your flesh while you  are half asleep. the walls twist and boil over, while i savour, in disgust, the heaviness of my existence, the meaningless lull of my name, called out by someone who brought about  an acutely unwanted genesis. the cries of the parakeets fade away, and the automation starts crawling around my skin again, enveloping me in a almost-comfortable embrace…the spell is broken, by the vision of my forefathers, on their animal parchments, and blood-like inked etchings, their truly broken hearts and the deceit of my own.
Debopriyaa Dutta May 2019
buried alive; (in) sane; or harakiri?

a trifecta of horror
cuts through the lush foliage while i
writhe in a nest of
eldritch entrails

anxiety
rises up like an ophidian
coils shedding every quarter of a noon
ready to strike -
i lose movement
and falter through the streets
the meeting rooms,
and the endless conversations that end in stalemates;

my anxiety
an ouroboros of volcanic self-effacement
spills into posh mental facilities (lies)
and shoddy hospitals that turn the sick into the living dead

humiliation
burns bright red (magenta)
and brands my delicate skin with age-old glyphs
they mark the end of a civilization

the birth of a metropolis
with twin suns and dark monoliths
where the mob guillotines the visionaries
and the artist dies a dog's death.
A slow descent into methodical madness.
Debopriyaa Dutta Feb 2018
who knew
that a certain part of someone
could be so deadly
yet so beautiful

his hands
pull me deeper into the mire
of his magnetism

who knew
that a pair of dark skinned hands
with veins cris-crossing
could undo a person within a matter of seconds

his hands
when he grabs the back of my neck
and pulls me closer to him for a kiss
burn me
in the forest fire of his touch.

our naked bodies unravelled,
his hands sliding against my skin
so sensitive to his touch
and his touch alone.

his momentary touches
while he drives
his movements
when he lights a cigarette :
those maddeningly arousing hands
have left me

b
r
e
a
t
h
l
e
s
s

the way the city lights fuse with
the hands of
this beautiful boy
makes spectres flicker in the distance

tracing circles with my fingernails
I rage against
sanity
hope
reason
caution
rejection

his hands have etched an image in my flesh's memory
which I can never forget
Debopriyaa Dutta Feb 2018
I crave,
for the norwegian woods
and the austere darkness of dawn,

for the anguish cracking your skin,
every time you try to smile.

your deep and shallow beings
merged into a chaotic ball
of disgust and tenderness,
excites me;

but I can only envision
a false memory of your touch
-electrifying as a death-like trance-

your dead eyes look right through my skull:
you shudder,

as you've uncovered the shadow of a dying woman,
and she indeed is,

the nihilistic lull of a catastrophe.
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

— The End —