Ghazals of Ordinance

By Dhruva Nandakumar

Solitude lacks a voice. Just the eerie rhythm of a blade’s warmth cradling the river of dreams along a tender fabric of leprous skin. It seeks cradling,

but is gifted only the gentle patter of an endless rain, a language devoid of noise, solely the frantic gasping for help through the eyes. It drowns, cradling

a million dreamy lies of a masseuse’s bosom. Death is imprisonment, differing from my wild aspirations of eternity. This is to tell you that I miss the reek of your artless, cradling

caress, brimming with frosty embraces and pale bouquets. The other day my heel met the tear- clad pavement, overrun by fruits of evolution, flashy grins from taxis cradling

ill-starred maidens to their bidders and I felt you. I painted monotone creases of grief through shallow puddles, remembering your pallor in the famine-laden,

cradling

cities of chaos. Every unposted letter, forgotten war, buried bloodline is you. Every hour adust, every greased hand is yours. All of your desire rests in reigning greed, cradling

paper notes, fuelling endless malice. Legions devote their crown to you. You must be in another realm now, where fiends confuse your parched calls with salvation. Cradling

myriads of masculinities, bloodthirsty yet impure, a moonlit maiden lucidly bathes in her womanhood. I wish to love this nation, its ambiguity, innumerable fists cradling

tomorrow’s dawn, but am left desolate as your crimson veil greets our infamous lanes. Crossing eyes brim with suspicion as children rush to their mother’s cradling

grasp, like ashes kissing the Pacific trough. The day before, Kaamam wafted your bruised lip, teeth craving the nectar of a verdant leaf. Claret lights for stars, sweat cradling

faraway cries to stop. I drop the blade, relinquishing a soil that fails to distinguish a goddess from a toy and abandon this cursed land of empty cradles.

By Dhruva Nandakumar