In your town again,
the landmarks look newer;
Shinier,
this used to be my town too.
it no longer is.
school holidays bring kids in droves
into nests and town centres with play areas
that compensate
in the absence
Of what they used to call presence.
Space.
the vacuities now filling up
a proxy real estate mafia orgasm,
passing off for development.
Growth.
and i walked past,
looking for,
that old sign post in green,
one step down from the main bridge.
Vanished.
the white tenets of a sanitized
chloroformed white sanitary towel based tin drum are all that remain
opposite the open air market
a yard from the fish store!
Fresh fish.
The road leads on,
tentacles and ridges
our first shared rickshaw once went past,
broken roads.
Broken people.
you were telling me your domain
was as well known,
for its local goon
as it was
for its proud minar,
in empty grounds.
straddling the temples,
Isolated.
in your town,
it now registers in my mind
in its absence
on a billboard.
home was a mile away
past lakes that you photo
and crop,
the rubbish heaps away from.
the slopes of ruin
never run slow;
but the absence of an ode,
A reason for the silence.
guts.
Poet’s Bio: Rony Nair slogs as an oil and gas Risk Management “expert/ director/ Vice President/consultant”-up on the greasy pole! He’s been 20 years in the industry since starting off as an Industrial engineer a long time ago.
Rony’s been writing poetry since 1985 and was a published columnist with the Indian Express in the early 1990’s. He is also a published photographer about to hold his first major exhibition and currently writes a regular column for two online journals; one of them widely read over South India.