An evocative, dark poem, by Subramanian, exclusively for Different Truths.

A long trek down the boulevards –
soft, silken breeze caressing arms,
traffic gliding silently like the crowds, –
made veins surge, eye scan the charms.
Mind warmed to the nuances of beauty,
Can beauty ever be rimmed in a clone?
ethics shackled to a punctilious brain?
Stem cells to free a body from decay,
Fate-storming war off a chip’s chest;
Bacterial gene in plant to scare away pest –
Hail a brave new world or a stowaway?
Does the trekker at the tip of a new wave,
fancy a shore of pink faces on the summit?
Wyatt’s steam engine ferried angry ghettoes,
a sullen underworld and nocturnal Luddite?
Can the trekker undo its shadows?           
 
With papier-mâché gods in its sleeve,
every age steals a march on the past,
or fancies it does; from amoeba to mammal
the bell of cohesion rings loudest
but not heard; does the clang of the bell
stop termites from infecting thought?
A terrible thought is brewing in the caverns,
termites hissing menacingly at the clones.  

Visual by Different Truths

K. S. Subramanian

K.S. Subramanian has published two volumes of poetry titled Ragpickers and Treading on Gnarled Sand through the Writers Workshop, Kolkata, India. His poem ‘Dreams’ won the cash award in Asian Age, a daily published from New Delhi. He has been featured in MuseIndia. His poems and short stories have also appeared in magazines, anthologies and web sites run at home and abroad. He is a retd. Senior Asst. Editor from The Hindu, India.