The captured image flits between perceived and actual reality. And impels as well as coaxes us to imagine something more beyond what's immediately accesible to the eyes.

This poem came about on a closer look at the image that I had captured in a derelict place, forlorn and sad and the second image that I edited and tinkered with also stands as an adjunct to the reworking that the poem does of the seen image.

The Poem, that came about as a sort of afterthought:

Random Flux

When you capture precarious  places, 

at the intersection of hope and disrepair

there is a certain sanctity even in that brokenness 

Life slides in even as it escapes from the cracks 

and the chipped pieces of time hang there awaiting 

intimations of the unknown kind

Something stops and stays still, awhile 

as you weed out the random outgrowths 

to look for clues of some other life ticking inside 

Simultaneously, something withdraws from the sidelines 

and slinks away via the invisible openings

evading easy, formulaic definitions about itself 

Never to be found again, 

carrying the unused data packets of bundled, social etiquettes

into the wastelands of a battle hardened self 

Life is as much in the middle of things

As it is when nothing is ever happening,

Time dangles trinkets of opportunities in random flux

Shujaat Mirza

© Shujaat Mirza 2021