Satya Dash

POETRY BY SATYA DASH


Conspiracy Theory

The dog’s piercing howl cannot puncture

tyranny. But his showboating bark trims

the minister’s deep slumber. In one

of the country’s most celebrated 

residences, the hour is loveless, 

excruciatingly opaque. The pillows

in the house moan soft just when

an angel lands on the roof.

His hirsute body is bound by broken

wings. He doesn’t have a purpose yet. Whatever 

he does here becomes gospel: to be laid

out as a chapter in the orientation handbook 

for the undergrad syllabus of promising future 

angels. He enters the bedroom, caresses 

the minister’s snoring face. It’s difficult to say

with any certainty why the minster doesn’t 

resist. His political career suggests he is a man 

of retaliation and swift onslaughts. The bed 

is strewn with the angel’s grimy feathers 

as he bounces with delight on the spring

mattress. Tender milky geckos on sills

witness his unprecedented thrill 

as the minister lies oblivious, his mouth

gaping. When the angel leaves, the night bleeds 

soft light through the bathroom door. 

When the minister wakes up to piss, he ejects

a stream of flowers. This anomalous 

condition spares him no respite till he tenders 

his resignation two days later. His understudy 

assumes the vacant position. When folks 

on the street are interviewed, some say 

they saw a huge bird like creature with brown 

wings hovering over the parliament at dawn. 

The journalist omits this from his big cover

story. The angel shows up at the journalist’s

place that night. This time with dapper red

wings. The journalist offers him a drink

of single malt whiskey. Both are drunk by

the time the angel leaves. The wings turn

brown in the scabby moonlight. The journalist 

has secretly recorded some of their

conversation. He decides to save this

evidence for a rainy day. Halley’s comet

was last seen in 1986. It hasn’t rained here since.

 

Satya Dash is the recipient of the 2020 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Broken River Prize. His poems appear in  Poet Lore, ANMLY, Waxwing, Rhino Poetry, Cincinnati Review, and Diagram, among others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator. He has been nominated previously for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Orison Anthology and Best New Poets. He grew up in Cuttack and now lives in Bangalore, India.

He tweets at: @satya043