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