By Amrita Sharma
A Box of Fumes
A box of fumes within each frame
Of mortal souls untied to laws,
Encased within the falling hopes
That were once destined to entice your heart.
A handful of mist that each one of us
Carried along the spotless path,
Uncovering images of shining domes,
Marked upon by the silver stars.
I wrote our names upon each rock,
Of luminous screens and flashing slates,
In blacks and whites and thousand fonts,
That morphed along a tenuous carve.
When chaos reverts and timelessness falls,
Perhaps we shall reach out to unknown lands,
Unfolding layers of skies and space,
For then the fumes may drift apart.
***
The Chaos
They gifted an illusion
of a perpetual calm
to mortal minds.
They dictated a blessing
upon the empty hands
with naked cries.
They converted the myths
of hungry dogs to men
with golden plates.
They created a rift
between the crux of hopes
across the towers.
They empowered the disabled
but once in a decade perhaps
for exceptions’ sake.
They replaced it all
by a deafening void
of the chaos.
Bio:
Amrita Sharma is a Lucknow-based writer, currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English from the University of Lucknow. Her works have previously been published in Café Dissensus Everyday, Muse India, New Academia, GNOSIS, Dialogue, The Criterion, Episteme and Ashvamegh. Her area of research includes avant-garde poetics and innovative writings in the cyber space.
***
Like Cafe Dissensus on Facebook. Follow Cafe Dissensus on Twitter.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday is the blog of Cafe Dissensus magazine, based in New York City and India. All materials on the site are protected under Creative Commons License.
***
Read the latest issue of Cafe Dissensus Magazine, “Poetics and politics of the ‘everyday’: Engaging with India’s northeast”, edited by Bhumika R, IIT Jammu and Suranjana Choudhury, NEHU, India.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 