Notes on Marination - Poems by Atimanyu Vashishth

Notes on Marination

A drizzle of peanut oil.

Salt to taste.

Crushed red chilli powder.

A touch of asafoetida.

The kitchen faucet…

Dripping,

Needing a new washer

—old rubber.

Sound of saliva,

Being sucked out.

Lemon juice rubbed over the meat.

A generous sprinkle of fenugreek.

She found me,

Marinating in my own mediocrity.

Baap…

My anger is acutely childlike.

I cannot stay angry

With anyone for a long time.

It is rather animated.

I hold back

The habitual

Serenity of my face;

Only to seemingly

Incite myself artificially

And keep the creases

On my forehead intact.

One might at times

Even catch

An innocent smile leak.

It’s simplistically silly.

Just the same.

…

In many ways

I am not very dissimilar

To my father. 

Insidiously Smoking

It happened

Before it could happen again.

I gave up

Trying to light my cigarette

With an incense stick.

If combusting

Beyond grief

Is what it takes,

Then

So be it…

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About the Poet:

Atimanyu Vashishth is an artist and poet. He is currently also a Course Master at the

Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. He devises his practice through a freeform process of iteratively developing and directing poetry, screen printing and performance under a framework that he calls ‘Devised Domesticities’. He writes of the psychotropic anticipation that is there in romance.