The golden bindi has been smeared

Off to the crossroads between the scalp and the blue forehead.

Under a weary noon, come to pause,

Under a sacred fig, a crow caws,

The final blade of spring falls,

Under the burden of summertaxes

The songs of the fishermen doze off under the sands

Of a faraway beach.

The warm sand-fraught knot-naught wind

Bends under the withered tissue of browning barks frowning,

The sky lay flat on the dust dressed yet naked streets.

Life, lonely as the lamenting everlasting noon,

Eagles froze; sunlight and shadows have settled their scores

"Laugh boys laugh, at the skinny brown arms"

the unfortunate scarecrow unsown

the hung face, tired arms tied at nineties

At the dead crane among the eagles.

The laughing dictator charged unbent and crashed his head at his laughing stock

Boys laugh.

And the crow under the sacred fig,

Caws zero.

~Ajay

7/6/18