apocalypse: when i was a child i imagined the end of the world.
i saw certain abstracted futures.
in my schoolbooks i saw nameless figures in embrace.
i learnt that women can be bald too.
the future is upon us. let us go then.
let us walk into warm heavy rain.
❁
the blankness
darkened our doorways
for weeks and months.
it occupied our heads
like one great sinus—
silent spaces: : :
occupied by unspeaking faces.
❀
there are forests
growing within my telephone set.
schools of goldfish and herds of whales
swim through spiraling cable.
✿
atlases and the encyclopediae that i
leafed through as a child now
govern my inner rhythms.
the frog speaks to me: his
dying croaks
grow more distant.
but the world awaits:
fungi and deserts and
Leptadenia pyrotechnica.
doilies. my mother.
❁
plastic toys on bookshelves.
books about world geography.
and the history of japan. wooden, brown. white crocheted doiles.
WARE. ceramic, porcelain, lacquer: crystal.
globes. history of the entire world.
TECH: lasers, atoms, steel,
tables, diagrams,
❀
i smell sanitizer.
cats. buddha.
ONE OF MY BOOKS IS GOING TO BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT
BOOK WORLD KINOKUNIYA IN 2010.
✿
i think i could exist here for all eternity:
solitary stone-grey sofa.
dark carpets.
that is all that exists in the world.
cold glass—beyond these windows exists nothing.
i brush my teeth. my bag slumps against this elephant-coloured sofa.
this is all there is.
❁
let us
walk,
uncertain,
into the dying light
of a lofty café,
the floors slipping
under our soles
clumsily use
blunt knives and forks
their clanging
titanium-white highlights
flashing in those
of our loud-laughing eyes.
pearl earrings, beautiful women.
beautiful women.
❀
"Look, look: the light of the world."
S. Taufeequddin Azher’s work has also appeared in Expat Press and Citywide Lunch.