Mindless rhythms

The four legs of this sculpture are each made from the Urdu letter Rey — ر — the most common ending sound in Urdu poetry. Kar, par — the rhymes that close a thousand verses, the sound that signals to a listener that a line has ended and something poetic has been achieved.

Four of them emerge from the wall separately, as if the rest of the poem — the words, the thought, the struggle — has been left behind on the other side. What comes through is only this: the ending. The rhyme. The part that was always expected to arrive.

Together they create the visual illusion of a structure, four curved forms cascading forward in rhythm. Which is precisely the point. Rhyme creates the illusion of completeness. It gives the listener something to recognise, something to nod at, something that feels like arrival — regardless of what came before it. The poet here is not interested in that arrival. He is interested in what gets left behind in the wall.

Mindless Rhythms is the rhyme without the poem. The ending without the meaning. The sound that satisfies without the thought that should have earned it.

Mindless rhythms | Acrylics on wood | 41 x 26 x 35.5 inches approx | 2018