The dire landscape of a no man’s land
Where the macaques make busy jumps
From tree to tree. Palmyra grow
Like pillars with canopy. An intersection
Of ethnicities, where a little excavation
Will unfold bones pealed of flesh.
War is just a cannibal; it is famished
Of loathe and bites the very flesh that searches for a banquet
Of corpses. The hyenas have no pride
Nor does the vulture. Nor does a history
That counts absent heartbeats
On excavation sites. Time is only a victim
Of acrimony, of the sheer parsimony
Of love. Still they make Palmyra jaggery
And paint their faces with brown moons
Which turn to a cold indifferent blue
Like cyanide painted tongues.
