. This Town Breathes Poem by KATOCH P C K PREM

THIS TOWN BREATHES

It is a town where men breathe
and do not live; they walk
but stand still in consternation
look around
but see nothing.

Huge structures there are
of stones, pebbles and bricks
of mortar concrete
and there are straight lines
and move to touch sleep.

There is noise and drumming
In music and waltz
men search for harmony
and peace without identity
pace of growth remains
undefined
and from the top of minarets
as muezzins profess a statue.

They get up and wash
bodies and brush teeth
clean hands
it is a ritual without faith
here men live in lined tents
and barracks of predetermined
desolation
and of consequential objectives
vacant and rudderless.

Loaded with patronymics
where history was quiet
and blunt and dusky
a pedagogic wandering
without wits
a dictum awaiting realization
among men who heave
but live within fake wall
among the eponymous crocodiles
that creep in vacuum
where calendars of years burst
with dates ignoring relevance
to past
buried alive and dead.

Dates in red, black and blue
speak of time past
and knock at future taking birth
for men who lost the will
to live
it is a frustration
unparalleled
disillusionment I impotence
and infertility of a eunuch
barrenness rules
where wombs are deserts
seeds of future frozen
and tears roll for compassion
eyes well up for beauty
and love but burn and dry up
in wait till time exists not.

It is horror in beauty
and the town thrives
in men under siege
and yet no man lives
a mechanical operation it is
equipped with brakes, clutches
and accelerators
without lubricant or oil filter
a man operates and switches
on his knobs
presses buttons
for himself to love
it is a generator that starts
its engine
and moves like wheels
without a road.

It is a race without a win
and defeat
it is eerie illusion
lusty vision without a scenario
he paints and forgets
creates a cottage and scrambles
it is a disclosure
without a secret
he pours out emptiness
and claims substances without a wish
a hypocrisy that continues
without impediments and impacts
a generational movement
through ages
inhabited by men
who own no faces
but bear masks
they are structures breathing
noisily at night
rattling and renting
it is a cry without an object
knobby men shall always weep
in musings.

Live in images
see an objective in confusion
and chase a mirage
running unwilling with burning desires
mangling facts
in scorching heat of emotions.

These men carry a destiny
to achieve
a fate when inhabitants escape
a murky present
die in moribund past
and live in a uncertain future
a connection without even acolyte
and reference
to aeonsand generations.

Ages that are junky and trodden
maimed and dwarfed
these walk into cocoons
of nonentity
who breathe and do not live
see, hear, smell and touch
everything and yet find
a void and unfeeling hearts
where defiled souls
bruise passions and nervous tensions
dictate thoughts
of punctual mugwumps
a cultural hibernation
without past and present.

Natural ambitions without future
it is here these men live
yet die
walk and yet stay in cartilage
relive in furies of amentia
without the ultimate
and boast of history
without roots.

It is a confrontation
among men of town dead
and yet resurrecting
a conflict
between creation and destruction
patterned living
seeming life with apparent death
in lines and dots
a horrifying proposition
with a lurid past
disfigured present
and no future.

There men breathe here
it is utter fiasco
this town cherishes
and men aspire
for it is
a collective desire in glory
of cultural vacuity
and perdition.

(ORACLES OF THE LAST DECADE 1998)