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A most malodorous mockurance (Free verse) by bharat shekhar
Typing out a mess-age,already memo-rised
The secretary , raises her head, purses MoUTH
andinthe samotion, and-in-the-same- ame-ame-otion,
jerks it towards the conference room,
"They're waiting for you inside."
His-panic radiates.
Each cell craves
an out-of-body experience,
to separate, hide in unicellular safety.
Skin 'po(u)res' out the remnants of confidence.
It sticks to his shirt in wet patches.
Bowels controlled barely,
He wal(k)rawls inside-
to a room full of eye-talons
searing his clotheskin,
tearing his self from him---self.
Suddenly everybody is inside his shoes.
And their sniggering weight staggers his gait.
X-ray glasses perched on stone noses,
pry out secrets from his very bones.
The light of the projector,
illuminating the downward curve
of the company's present projections
is on his face.
'G..GEâ¦GET TO THEMPTY CH⦠CHâ¦AIR.'
gasp the shreds of sanity
fusing together some of his thoughts,
while they stretch apart others.
And somehow, safely he threads his way
across hostile territory.
â¦And stands behind the seat.
And pulls it towards himâ¦
As noises go, it is a small one.
But in the silence of an expectant meeting
(where minions are expected to nod 'yes'
and not be heard)
the clap from a thousand thunders
could not have been louder.
The bottom of the chair scrapes the floor.
"Screeeeeeeâ¦.
As coincidences go, it is a small one.
But the scraping resembles the release of noisy gasmell
held prisoner too long by a tight-lipped sphincter.
Handkerchiefs are whipped hastily to block,
contain the oil-slick of olfactory disaster.
And suddenly -
before he can even begin
to explain the ludicrous occurrence
-spinsters, spin doctors and rakes,
indeed all those with 'company' stakes-
(serpents, sympathizers, servants,
free spirits, slaves, sadists,
feminists, chauvinists and their detractors,
Dilbert Dolittles, diehard workaholics, working hard-ons,
sexual harassment in suits, pretend prudes, prudent prunes,
weeping willows, sad cypresses
and other vegetative wallflowers)
collapse together their individual identities,
become a 'collective consciousness' of derision.
The director, smoking his Havanus Cig-arse,
crinkles his long dead nose stump,
as though it is born again by the mother of bad smells.
The ass-istant's hands fly to her ears
as though warding off a noise the magnitude of the big-bang.
His nightmare had somehow been borne into being.
In sheer terror he pulled the chair again.
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