Tomic Riter

Tag: poem

  • Disturbance.

    consumed with severe thoughts -
on the other side of this wall,
a bird humming.

  • What things go on.

    I sit in frustration, watching how things proceed. The inhumanity flowing parallel to humanity. The great killer tide. Longer hours of hunger prevail. Today, I slept to the point of mild nausea. Daytime is demotivating, draining. This place is, once again, a desert. I hardly know, these days, what is going on outside. I go to work and then come back home. It is my only daily adventure. No walks outside. No drinking. Smoking I had quit long ago. This was a good time to start again.

    Few essential shops open for a brief time – 9 in the morning till 12 at noon. Over the past few weeks, timings have been changed multiple times. The people higher up probably do not know what the fuck would be the best time for people to step outside. I guess for the people who are just stupid, no time would be best. For others, yeah, something can be worked out. Often, people from small nearby villages arrive after everything closes down. They remain unaware of the changed timings. Hopelessness smears their weary faces. They go back thinking about I don’t know what dreadful things. Extreme hunger. Death. Some other violence.

    People are losing their minds. Isolating oneself can be toiling. Whatever. Sometimes, what needs to be done must be done without much thinking. It is the best bet.

    Tonight is a dreary windless night. Only pests are roaming freely on our streets. And dogs. And pigs. I have not listened to any song today. Maybe soon I will. Maybe.

    © Copyright 2020 Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • A sweet bird brought me terror.

    5:23 in the morning
I wake up with a nightmare
a sweet bird, few inches long, is entering my body through my ear
its sharp beak is digging my ear
it bears an emotionless evil in its eyes
I wake up violently, and sit,
shuddering, looking all around, looking under my pillow
to find out if it is real
it is not
it is not
my ear is intact, eardrum in place, no blood flowing out
a mild relief grips me
no bird, I take a deep breath
a growling hunger fills my stomach with ache
I close my eyes and try to forget. 

    © Copyright 2020 Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • Some words from my workplace.

    precious hours go wasted each day
the act of merely sitting in anticipation of work can prove to be cumbersome
doing work is easier, it kills time at least
'It is mandatory to complete your working hours,' we got the direction a week ago
'Fuck that,' to that I said
it is difficult to make grown men understand the new,
effective ways of working faster
I turn off the fan when I feel cold
and then turn it on again when the heat rises
the process repeats multiple times throughout the day
people in useless masks are roaming all around,
their temples, mosques, churches remain closed
they do not know anymore if God is listening to them
I make a joke on the people dying
some laugh while others adjust their masks
outside it is too hot to walk during daytime
nights are cold 
the roads remain largely empty
the shops remain closed, locked behind shutters, eating dust
the fruit sellers are selling half rotten fruits, half rotten vegetables,
anything
every time I take a piss, I think of
going back to my home, sitting in my chair, doing nothing 
and being fine with it.

    © Copyright 2020 Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • Just like any other dusk.

    I went to the roof, just like I did the day before yesterday
the crows gathered at 6:30, just like they must have yesterday,
talking among themselves in a language I still have not been able to decode
I have stopped trying for now, watching them is easier than understanding them
by 6:38, the sun had reduced to a red dot, falling fast behind a lump of mountains
I kept looking at it until it disappeared
the wind had begun to gain speed
all the crows were gone
I walked with many short steps for some time, then stopped to feel the wind,
then resumed my walking
I walked like it was my own, personal paradise
the village boys had stopped playing
the sky had almost lost all its light
fewer people remained outside,
I being one of them, walking with short steps between no specific spots
in the presence of wind, I did not feel the need of a song
in the absence of wind, life seems more difficult than it would be in the absence of food
I can live with hunger for a good long time
I saw people walking, like every day, on the roofs of their homes rather than walking on the streets
they find it safer on the roofs these days, as if the virus won't be able reach there and infect them
I am not like them, I go to the roof just for the sunset and the wind
by 7:15, everything went dark
I could see nothing, nothing saw me
few minutes later, I saw a lady arriving on the roof while talking loudly on her cellphone
she was followed shortly by a man 
I do not know if they saw me
for the remaining time for which I was on the roof, the lady kept talking loudly on her cellphone
while her man kept looking at her and sometimes at other things
I walked for some more time
then I started walking downstairs to my room
I turned off all the lights on the way down,
walked to my room, unlocked it, and went inside.

    © Copyright 2020 Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • The clock chimes no more.

    Day 5 or day 39 or day 42 or whatever day. Who cares. We kill our own times. Life is too long or too short to keep track of anything. Sooner than you realize, you go back to being the same shithead that you decided innumerable times to never be again.

    It’s going to be a half-moon night with no stars dancing. There’s no quarantine in my line of work. I am meant to die in the field while talking to some brainless jerk. I am meant to eat cannon balls. ‘Go ahead. Eat it. Eat that as well. Eat all of that. Come on! Eat fast. It’s for the good of your own people. ‘ Well, you got to eat all of that even if you got no people of your own. Frankly, in my line of work, you got no life of your own. You live with a false sense of satisfaction. You have got the love of people, even their claps and kisses but what in the hell, where I am about to go, will I do of all the claps and kisses? What will I do with all of that if I cannot have, in these trying times, even simple things that I actually, really want like meat and beer? People. People. People. They hardly understand your side of things. Their lives, inside their little heads, is far too important than anything else. They drown in their own piss of emotions without even knowing when did the drowning begin. They cannot even watch themselves for just a second. Like simply watch. ‘What’s there to watch in oneself?’ they would say. Well, if nothing is there then why so much fuss.

    I am watching the burnt rice from yesterday night, burnt at the bottom of the vessel. Things can go to hell in no time. A little here and there and it’s done. Your life is done. You are no more. You cease to exist here and go back to hell for some time. And in hell, it’s just your soul in the frying pan, smiling in pain all the time. As of now, I have put the burnt rice in the garbage bin, and I now wait to throw it out once its smell becomes unbearable.

    The virus is spreading faster now. It has started liking the people here. It is everywhere now, breathing our air, sleeping on our sofas, taking a summer swim in our glasses of water, kissing our toilet seats, chewing our brain nerves, inhaling our farts, dying in our abdominal acid. It is fucking everywhere, and its message is clearer than that of any God.

    — TOMIC RITER