Where the Piopios Sing

By Hornbill Harcel

“Tragedy of heart, tranquility of soul.”

Where the Piopios Sing is an immersive collection of poems and excerpts from wayward letters and diaries that paints a canvas questioning what is loss - lost love, lost friendships, lost childhood, lost home, lost justice, lost wars, lost freedom, lost innocence, lost aspirations, lost identity, etc. The expressive prose and verses of the book frame the answer to the posed question in the feelings of bittersweet blues. The poetries invoke the imagery of slipping through the grasp of time and take the readers through the landscape of yearning and introspection, stripping the hearts vulnerable and longing for solace.

In this limited frame of reality that will one day cease and perish, the book jumps into an ocean to search for the meaning of life enshrouded in the colors of loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9789358836363

Hornbill Harcel

Hornbill Harcel was born in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, and grew up in Punjab, India. She debuted with the book ‘Woebegone Wynds’ in 2021. In the wake of her debut book, Hornbill Harcel was felicitated with the Sahityakosh Samman and the Author Awardee Award. The Ukiyoto Literary Awards recognised her as Poet of the Year at the Kolkata Literary Carnival 2024. She was recognised for literary work and contributions on World Book Day and was nominated for the LiFT Award in 2022. She is fond of chasing wild paths, charting new courses, and seeking adventure. When she is not working as a Software Engineer, she is raiding books from shops and libraries, and trudging up hillsides. She wrote her first poem when she was 14 years old and fell in love with writing ever since.

Book preview

I

Discessum

Nuda Veritas

A raging river gushes past a mansion of ghosts,

made of black onyx, hiding a minacious plot.

The kelp of secrets buried under the sea

will breeze in like the amber advent in Verdin.

The old paintings with woe eyes and ugly features

were burned long ago by treacherous creatures.

The noise of the ocean builds with anticipation

afore time truth fills the silence of the

perigean spring tide celebration.

The susurration that follows every footstep

laughs at the display of news.

Framed in rotten frames, the incident of

drowned lovers and deceived troops.

The beetle buries its ball at the onset of dark

where Re vanquishes Rerek in his divine bark.

The ocean of chaos gives rise to light -

but Apophis renews the ritual every night.

The sly fingers of Dolos that shaped Veritas

quake in fear over the unfinished feet.

When Mendacium stood stuck in her tracks,

the other held mirror to her devious twin.

Unclenched Petals of Ceroy

My milady heart is a citrus paradisi,

engulfed in layers of acidic flesh.

The swain peels the flavedo with urgency

and feasts on it in a rampant zest.

My beloved head is a debacle arena,

unguarded like the unclenched petals of the *Ceroy.

Owlish words form incipient ideas and questions,

disrupting the laid foundation of time.

My soldier’s brachium dextrum is Excalibur,

undeterred amidst the vigor of venomous folks.

The hunter mantle chiliad steels in stone

yet none remain disguised when the toddler yowls.

My soldier’s laevo is Caliburn,

holding the scabbard with pride.

Unbled, unkilled, and potent,

he is one part might, and one part divine.

My dowager smile is labios de puta,

seductive as red thymes in bloom.

The maid kisses the false treasures

and earns punishment in the sinner’s queue.

My aficionado’s skin is golden,

shining amidst a den of loot.

Touching the treasure is precluded

yet the hound metes them out as tribute.

My lord’s feet are inselberg,

occupying the footstool with triumph.

Steadfast in the tenebrosity of castle,

inapposite to punic faith and deceit.

* Ceroy – This floral specimen is characterized by its claret red pigmentation and anomalous petal morphology. It defies the conventional understanding of floral development behavior. The petals of this flower remain in a permanent state of expansion. The chemical composition of Ceroy is such that it refrains from circadian or other environmental cues that trigger movement in species. The presence of VOCs-like aldehydes and terpenoids provide these flowers with a citrus aroma.

Yureru

In a place beyond space and time

Nefarious beings encounter higher lives.

Fictitious creatures of blood and bone

Incubating terms of knowledge in firms.

Nocturnal standards held by society

Insidious hazards met politely.

Trepidations of power held in scorn

Young and illiterate bearing loans.

Intricacies of the sculptor’s mind

Send ideas to the confused benign.

Adorned by lament and hate,

Cycle of power wavers in its reign

Yureru! Yureru! Yureru! The law sways.

Communication satellites al fresco exosphere

Learn the truth of alien ways

Existing conscience outside the ball of rocky flake.

Belief of the beauties turns to pain

Each follower deserts the shrine’s gate.

Eureru! Yureru! Yureru! Their belief oscillates

Onset of aurora emerges as blood rain.

Next in succession raise their hands

Death knocks on the door of insipid names.

Tremendous decisions of powered folks

Ignite a wave of multiple holocausts.

Masquerading in loss, pain, and crime

Escapes a butterfly, by reversing the metamorphosis cycle of life.

Philately

Sigh!

In the reminiscence of my past, there lay a grave where instead of the fore, the epitaph is carved on the rear. The body inside was once full of hope. It was the bond shared among me and my five cohorts. In the here and now, all its organs and soft tissues have decomposed. All the bones have disintegrated and returned back to the shore.

The appellations that were my quotidian phenomena have long become the extinct treasures of my youth. The echoes that used to surround me left a void that never got saturated with novel tunes.

Those five were antecedently the brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys of my terrestrial anatomy. With every dispute between time and fate, each was stripped from me uncharitably. During the process of organ harvesting, my mind was wide awake. It was praying to the lotus in muddy waters to stymie this callous game.

In that grave, I laid for centuries as hush as gone. Scratching and screeching with nails, I carved into it five letters while days mutated into noon. Contemplating the mammoth mystery of the moon’s wax and wane, I spent my days in that cemetery of five, in one grave. The connection to my peers lost me like the war of colours bleeding through twilight. It turned me into an alien reflection who was bitter and disappointed in life.

Until one day, a stranger near the ocean called my name. Yanked me by the collar and thrusted me outside the yard’s gate. Anew, I found it hard to adjust to the light but