from my sweet alienated trance i am
pulled for a moment by the beauty
of the elephant-hide-grey temple walls
with dolloped on it a cream-white gopuram
studded with timeless stories frozen
in pale-paleo-time hemlocked by claims
of truth & lies
of course no one's looking at it
except through their screen-veils— a man
thrusts his phone in my face with durvasa's rage
& curses me to take a pic of his family
with the gopuram in the background
i doe-souled shakuntala startled from
the daydream of my stone-ciphered dushyanta
obey— i repent at the altar of that oppo camera—
sixteen megapixelled token of recognition
which will be lost & found
in the stream of information
~ ajay
29/11/2021
