spring2015

Ashok NiyogiScaffoldingScaffolding imprisons LuciferIn this renovation epoch;We are attempting to lend him shine,Give him light.Light, burning bright,Crisscrosses networked bamboo,Dead logs. Hemp knots knavesAnd bishops.This floor is a helter-skelter game we play.This ceiling is yet hearsay.Here and now, from scaffolding,I squint up, to thin wavy tiger-shadow,Wet with the fear of sweat.Blind glow-worms cuddle armpit hair,Drip, weep and inevitably birth.We are fleshing a cope,A skeleton, with free-falling mirth.On our walls, we exaggerate shadow starOur ‘monk in a cowl’ and his grim walk.He is the bringer of our dawn.His electron-lantern treads old scaffolding.So that we have lattice-light for dead geckos,Spread-eagled, outlined with impersonal chalk;So that we can cope,Master, minimize, tolerateHanging from this scaffolding,On Lucifer’s morning.57