the art of rot

as the genesis of infinite endings

in small enough rooms even whines hit it off
into harmony : the pulp of the matter composed

mid-explosion. here’s the last translation of the
first lullaby the earth’s ever heard : a lost lilting

galaxy’s spiral slur. each level of rot differs from
others as a name scrawled in the dust of a window

differs from a name scrawled in the steam between
rain and breath : the one written in the steam emerges

again when another steam arises as if the pane
remembers. the name of the game is difference

in each element’s pattern of indifference to decay.
which poem responds to what? all poems respond

to rot : as words stuck in the air like sneeze on glass :
a chance to grow places : see growth as decay’s nostalgia.

as biotope is autocorrected to bioscope

this box continues to mutate on the
material. flotsam, jetsam, materiel
and its remnants. remnants persist
as stain. remnants persist as restraint
too. cashew husk and wheat flour
arrayed like a sudoku on the moods
of the moon. cashew husk and wheat
flour terraform a box within the box.
a metatext of proteins. the roots of
terraform lie in terror not terra. you
know that’s a lie. verse lies as well
as rot lies about its scansion of fault
lines. the most fertile spaces suffer
from the most fragile times. fragile
as the new that the old depend on.
as generations gap. regenerations map
while new spores have begun nearing
their end moments. in the darkness
moonlight and sleep on eyelashes
weave a cat’s-cradle out of mycelia
that veil, unveil, then pinwheel pylons
gargled in the bluethroat of a storm.
i too ate the dark lonely fruiting body
and fell sick. played helical accordion
and went deaf. sated taproot hungers
but never stopped wanting more still.
catatonic bliss as eternity’s lovebite.
the growth and transformation has been
very slow in the box. existence doesn’t 
precede but exceeds essence like cloud
exceeds water. and shape has reordered.
like gravity exceeds matter. there have
been alterations. like the rotting exceed
the rotten. placed and captured on present
condition. like life exceeds the living as
the box continues to mutate currently.

as the apocalypse of infinite beginnings

wake up to bite the most disgusting sleight : days that bud
open with cheap cheese strings : sleep caked like blood
on punched faces that belong to no one in these cities

where performance swills out shells : settled crumbs that
overfed birds flap away from, kicking up light and not dust
because dust is what light would be if there was any consent

to there being this much together in any one blinking twang
of space : the snapsound of the rattrap that the long moment
of light outran but could never hope to escape: a string of all

that has withered : a carcass of a beached whale pecked pink
by carrion, graveyard vermillion, scars hidden under jackets
whet in the same rain. not even the hunter returned to claim

the rabbit caught in his trap now viscid with rotting leaves :
leaves briefly grieving in contact between belief and believing :
the child’s first fuzz, leaflittle buzz : a madman stabbing rivers :

sputum clotting in entropy’s spittoon : leaves floating past
disrobing sweetness : mynahs leaving too no matter how full
of songs on the sizzle of the living and the dazzle of the dead. 

as a lens, a crystal ball, and an autobiography

when did it become possible to look at a rot
and do nothing about it? when did it become
the only way of looking? 

a stone tossed into a bell : a prayer to be an answer
tucked inside a mango and still be called a stone
by at least one tongue.

the timecone of my existence and the piss arc
of my mind are congruent : an eczema of abridged
dreams, hence proved.

the spores depart for the arriving and then arrive
at the departing because where else can they go?
if only i could believe

in a place before entering it, a body to be more
than corrosion or corrosive, i’ll teach the spores
to stay as a want

rather than plowing through something that leaves
no signs of leaving. 

 

All images by Maksud Ali Mondal. From the series Biotope. Images courtesy of the artist.