“The specific traits of a Society correspond exactly to the untranslatable locutions of its language”—Jean-Paul Sartre in Black Orpheus (Tr: John Macombie)
I am a primate
dwelling in the wild forests
of my language.
My tongue lost irretrievably
in the swamp of hunger,
I hide amidst the barren rocks.
Your own selfie
sheds light on the swastikas
dangling like a locket
when you hide in the interstices of your alphabet.
My name had been a museum piece
Heaving my last breath like my dialect
before and after you live-streamed my scream.
(“the tyranny of real time”)
My language is an extinct variety of paddy.
It doesn’t sprout in the clay used to sculpt my body.
I am a martyr of my language.
