Simulacrum

The grainy image of the magnolia
superimposed over the dawn sky
reminds me of war

machinery in dust particles.
Over which an album of sounds
from Mann’s Heat appears—

although it is still summer
morning comes late now.

And I read the article on Dawn
about smog in Islamabad, last winter,

scrolling below something about
a new resort in Hunza, and
something about the phone lines
being cut somewhere in Kashmir—

and I'm reminded of a man
who sells saffron in F7,
last I went there
he was complaining about
the stock diminishing every year.

Digging through some archives
on YouTube I find a collection
of folk renditions on the guitar.

I wonder how did Mann manage
to create such realistic sounds
of guns and bullets and bombs—

what if Homer had a camera and a microphone?

The folk renditions playlist
reaches the end and stops
and I manage to play it again

before stopping a while on the feed
to look at the thumbnail of a new war film.

The songs remind me
of the summer heat near Cholistan,

I look at my dusty window, and
I think I smell a flower outside.