This Allegory Landscape by Nandini Dhar : MAYDAY

If I have wandered around
this city’s broken sidewalks,
pothole-ridden roads, too crowded

to notice another memory-heavy
somnambulist, it is because, I see

no glory in being ache-chiseled
into an immaculate alphabet.

The lengthening shadows of the hawk
on the lamp-post, the murky water
that fills the rust-heavy bucket

of the street urchin – any effort
to whip-open the stench
of his unwashed hair

with a kohl eye, will produce nothing
but memories of immediate trespass —

this city’s specters quiver
in the unread lines of an obscure poet.

The misfortunes that only obsolescence
can avoid, leaving intact

the blade between one’s teeth.

The erratic chorus of several hands
dragging the paint-brush
along the city’s walls – how

new poems are born
tearing the tongue out of the tiger’s mouth.

The clamor that inevitably follows
the sound of writing poems

in unison–

the distinguished obscurity
of the prison-yard, the emptiness

of the emaciated brown
that inevitably follows the vernal scarlet –

in order to render in any memorized
form this landscape of hollow eyeholes, I
must first chronicle the serenity of this obsolescence.

If I have looked for the odor
of this city’s riots in the lines
of obscure poets, it is because,

I see no glory in being the thread
that holds this book’s spine together.

Return to table of contents for Issue 13 Summer 2018.

This Allegory Landscape
by Nandini Dhar