3 Poems by Kazim Ali

 

1. Evening

A stray owl

Sitting under a brightly lit lamp post,

Roads honking with traffic all around.

Cars going like a colony of ants

Busy in collecting their food.

Numbing sounds of the rattling engines,

With a red blush on their bonnets.

Fumed antimony smoke.

Wind was wearing burnt rubber fragrance.

Flakes of soot and ash whirl in the air.

I tried to look for the setting sun

Because I couldn’t breathe!

2. The Shoelaces

When you and I,

Took that long walk;

In a hot summer day.

The crows too were bathed.

I found the day after,

A pair of extra shoelaces

That belonged to the shoes

I wore

The day we last met

I still got them

 

3. A Lone Tree  

Standing right by the long pavements

The long gouty boughs

Shed the last leaves.

Their rustling sighs

Beneath the feet of the people passing over

Screamd about the days long gone.

How the bright dawn turned to the gloomy dusk.

The tree watched all

And tried to tell about this doom and the insignificance of the things,

But in vain,

Because people

No longer listened to the trees!