Persistence of Memory, by Akshaya Pawaskar

The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1931

 Persistence of Memory

I am swallowed by your dream,
in the belly of your subliminal mind,
time has dilated.
It is midsummer sun,
languishing late on the sand,
June solstice with its endless days.
People have all fled and I wake up
desolate, even in dreams I choose
to be alone.
Only clocks are bathing in the briny
air, orangey, surreal.
They are battened and gelatinous.
Their tick-tock is a lazy sound of
a yawning plonk.
It is an evocation of a golden vacation,
that turned dour,
wind arrested, trees shed
twigs are pegs where
hours melt
into soft metal.
Some decay into
grinning pumpkins
fattening the ants.
In a parallel universe, it is real,
in ours, it’s a persistent memory
of a Catalonian dream
 recreated, Daliesque.
 Still and solid as
a paperweight.
Hard to tell
one from another.

Akshaya Pawaskar

Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, the Punch Magazine, Shards, The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Indian Rumination, Rock and Sling among many others. She had been chosen as the winner of ekphrastic poetry competition 2020 by Craven Arts Council , third place winner of Poetry Matters project contest 2020 and second place winner of Blue Nib chapbook contest 2018.