<< Issue 33
Sascha Akhtar
Disiecti Membra Poetae
Invenias etiam disiecti membra poetae – Horace
a teasing out pattern
to allow every structure
private thought
(for the susceptible esp.)
to become music
for public waltzes
***
Today, bickering birds
spinal clouds.
≈≈≈
So tired of the great illusion; becoming more murky, ill-fated, set to sap us at all costs, at all turns— out for blood. Yet, there is hope. For it is an illusion. Had we not preserved the archive of the ancients, we would not have even that solace.
It is becoming 3-D— fleshy, corpulent so much so that we doubt it to be Real. What happens when the Unreal consumes us? Where do ‘we’ go then? What is the digestive system of the Unreal. What is it created of?
Do we become the faecal matter of the Unreal?
≈≈≈
& wild hegemonies
of language
& a conference of
absolutes
Sean, dissolves
& I hear myself
say in a dream
‘fana al fana’
——-
& naturally perhaps
we are all dying/going to
stronger bodies, confabulating.
≈≈≈
Between light and
dark is light.
“Men have dreams that
don’t include you”
For every black hair
on my head
A wiry, springier partner
has emerged
White, light —
reflecting.
≈≈≈
“Chinese Organ Thieves”
the dialectic of forgotten wounds
Slow, metamorphic groove/chant/chanson:
Decalogue.
≈≈≈
When will morning come?
“Life flies by like a dream
when morning comes, dreams go
away. When will morning come?”
“People who are in a crisis tend to imagine things” – Television ephemera
In answering the question, the big one, about the ‘point’ of life, this holds within it an
interesting proposition.
What if life is in fact the ‘dream,’ the suspended trance state from which we must
‘awaken’. What then is the ‘true,’ life?
When will morning come?
What occurs at awakening?
And what of all the memories we accumulate, so vital— all the moulding we experience, the whips and lashes, coupled with the caresses that shape out on balance, a configuration of responses during our lifetime. The labour of the creation of this feels a necessary act.
This dream living then preparing us for another ‘awake,’ living? In which case, we are currently dead.
When will morning come?
What occurs at awakening?
≈≈≈
The children amidst us—
raise up like apparitions
of our inner gods
Reflections so rooted
In our demeanour,
Voice, action, countenance.
Sascha A. Akhtar has crafted six metaphysical poetry collections, a short story collection Of Necessity And Wanting embracing social realism and a volume comprising a biography and first time translations of Hijab Imtiazs’ little known manuscript Adab-E-Zareen upcoming in January 2023 with Oxford University Press. Akhtar is a Poetry School tutor and lecturer at the University of Greenwich. She performs internationally, some highlights include the Emirates Festival of Literature 2022 and Rotterdam Poetry Festival 2012. Latest writings appear in the Prototype Annual 4, Cut-Purse (Tangerine Press, 2022), Of Myths and Mothers anthology 2022 and Lucy Writers Platform. Akhtar has poetry forthcoming with both Intergraphia and Haverthorn Press. Many (but not all) of her latest poetic works embrace many forms, mostly eschewing the ‘book’ or the ‘page’.