Poems: Bibliophilia And Performing The Last Rites Of An Earlier Self

I notice her gaze from a distance, 
the eyes blazing with a message, smoky
at this hour. She knows 
in the end, only the char remains, yet 
she carries the ember around, 
hoping someday it would leap
into the flesh, carrying it long.
The eyes speaking, like a river 
gathers pebbles, suspends silt
where nothing seems to drown,
the sea floats above it, like an oil slick 
I drift 
to her eyes ajar, as if the wings of a butterfly 
flutter, a piece of star 
in multiple colors.
Can a book바카라™s loneliness be greater
than its author바카라™s, I wonder,
as I stare at the words, I see 
my forlorn vocabulary and her 
serenading each other,
like two dancing black holes, 
the voids merge, 
and emerge.

Performing the last rites of your previous self

The first things are objects 바카라“ they must be left behind
since memories cling to them which invoke the ghosts,
if we do not pass on to them.
Gather the objects precious to the previous self
Donate them in charity or dispose them off by burning.

Next, we must laugh at what is pass
we must consider the passing self as trivial 바카라“ worthy of jokes.
We must not allow tears to consecrate it
else it will spring to life 바카라“ water makes life happen.
By laughing we offer the deceased
the wind of the belly 바카라“ sterile and anoxic.

In the succeeding stage, the acquaintances will sprinkle earth
or add fire to the passing being
Be patient here, for these will be in words
Be like a corpse, just as it is 
passive to its last rites.

Everyone would retreat 
after ensuring the departed has been torn into its elements.
You wait till they have walked back forty steps.
You pray in solitude for the last time, offer the passing one 
the blood that is blue on its surface, but from inside like any other.

Pay your gratitude to the perished, 
for in its passing, you are taking a new life.
As a final step, forgive yourself
and keep no memory 바카라“ zilch, nothing, 
even of forgiving yourself.

(Tabish Nawaz teaches Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. He has published a short-story collection Opening Clouds, Fermented Rain (Hawakal, 2020). His short stories, poems and essays have been published in nether Quarterly, Madras Courier, The Bombay Review, Woolgathering Review, The Punch Magazine among other venues.)