Men with moustaches masquerade
The reminisce of bustle still lingers, otiose and dreamlike.
He, the other, one of many,
Stumbles along, across a square,
Armed with slippers and insanity
Through attics of comprehending boxes
Boxing in, boxing out, up
Bursting into the endless maps of now.
Time drives a man to the edge like that:
His mouth hung low, parted, disenchanted,
Listlessly, ingesting all the trivialities
One step at a time
In all its odd importance.
This square used to feel different
The sounds, the debates he used to have
His lips curled up in the glory of infancy
They are all consigned to oblivion, those hours,
Those silent films, watched on mind-screens;
A headache with pictures.
Frail hands grasp onto each other,
Their arthritis mutual, merging into one
Mess, but glad to find refuge in
Each other’s sadness, mating.
Trembling, they lie
Behind his back;
It’s all they’ve got,
And eyes flicker fanatically
In frantic endeavours to
Scrawl all these pantomimes into
His eroding mind.
The feeling is almost faded
In his legs
With their protruding violet veins
And messily pleated skin
This drain of feeling dances like
An idea, rotting around this body.
And there are herds of you
Walking down myriad alleys
In this delirious city, all with
That very same posture.
All of you reduced by age
Into chains of ants on the tarmac desert
Side by side dogs with mixed up heads,
Mixed up to be growing old
And cruising towards endlessness,
Bursting into blue.
