Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Breakfast on Hafiz Street

Nan-Lavash and Nan-Sangak

Even the names spill in shy calligraphy

Crumbly mounds and poignant strips

Of sesame-flecked, earth-kissed dough

Each of their sorrows brought to awaken

On the time-tested, flame-kissed profundity

Of a kiln mired in darkness thick

And human hands wallowing in obsession whole

 
Each fresh city brings with it

An entrée of thrill, provocative thrill

A main course of anonymity, the hopes we’ve cursed

With a sweet thereafter of skin caressing truth

Each foreign address bristles with the brio

Of salt penetrating slivers of soil

Flavour abounding in these circadian hymns

Carnal concerto instigating these morsels to lust

 
Truant tango of taste, flickering on tongues

Embraces heritage with as much bravado

As it does a fertile festival of yoghurt birthed profuse

Nestled beside apricots, figs, and mulberry melee

Each infliction of flavour, and Isfahan stirs

It blooms in a wildness of blue emulsified

Clutching its secrets from a larder forsaken

Kindling the ashes of hunger, of debauchery…

 
Kindling the ashes of far too long ago.

 
 
 
← Siddharth Dasgupta