In the longhorn of a goods train,
Passing silent homes, chugging south,
On tracks almost dead,
Past stations, empty and bereft.
The pendulums of civilisation sway a bit slower,
And the seconds seem to last much longer,
In this day that never seems to end,
One with many seasons, and lives,
An abeyance stuck in crisis; of its own shadow, affright.
The summer was an hour ago,
The mangoes fresh and ripe,
To be pickled and souffled,
Cut and quartered, fought over,
Like nations over imaginary borders.
The fear hangs on like a grandfather clock,
In the silence of midnight, you hear its sway,
An inheritance, generation upon generation,
Waiting, and waiting more, for time to pass,
Or to know the bug is no more.
The torn days of the calendar lay
In the nooks and crannies of a staircase landing,
Tera Incognita, waiting to be swept away someday,
By broom or breeze,
Into forgotten dreams.
The spiders come and go,
And weeds eat into the concrete;
As the sun crosses back to south,
An evening breeze whispers
Scandalous tales, and salacious conspiracies.
Into the embers of the dying west,
Someday, I shall go,
Aboard a flight with bad coffee,
Cardboard sandwiches and tinned hope,
Packed and parcelled for bonded souls.
