Time And Motion Tableaux Poem by Ananta Madhavan

There is a trick of cinematography
Which traps a rapid movement in mid-flow
And halts it for a discomfiting second
And then, with mock compassion, lets it go.


A man and girl are frozen in their stride,
Arrested for our languorous regard.
How long can they keep it up, off-balance?
A lordly pardon will vivify their tread.


Things freeze like that sometimes: I see tableaux
Of history like a 'Sleeping Beauty' set -
London burning, and all the flames congealed;
I burn and gutter with the fire you lit.