Unlike most progressive poetry-which can be emotive but simple, resorting to common tropes that are easily understood by the Nepali everyman-Govinda Bartaman's poems require readers not just to work their hearts, but also to tax their brains. There is a studied, philosophical timbre to his work that comes, perhaps, from his work as a literary and social critic. (He is one of the clear logicians in the progressive ranks of Nepali literature today). In the poem below, Bartaman uses the symbol of a walking city-and the menacing image of its unstoppable, stalking legs-to reflect upon the increasingly fast-paced, greedy and heartless nature of life in Kathmandu.

THE CITY'S LEGS
On streets cleansed by currents of coins
the city's legs walk
to crowds and deserted corners
to pubs and parlours
to casinos and bars
hauling all the goings-on of the body
The city's legs walk endlessly, without tire

With the same haste that national disasters feel
to generate headlines in daily newspapers
the city's legs pace back and forth
in the aggrandisement resembling vile makeup
on the faces of all the front pages
The city's legs walk endlessly, without tire

Storing sleep in a tranquilliser pill
they walk all night through a jungle of pitches
Sometimes they ride all night
upon the horseback of words
circling the unbounded world of their own idiocy
When they step down, hungry
they gorge on the blood of time
They ordain every shoe in the world
a master, not a slave
And currying favour with these shoes
they forge ahead to stalk the marketplace
No, the city's legs never tire

There are many of us like me here
Emerging from the hush of our brains
our insufficiencies and our legs
walk to factories and to offices
seeking work and conducting work
seeking loads and carrying loads
tiring as they walk
walking as they tire
Among these legs, my own legs walk now
towards rice grains and lentils
towards the vegetable market
These are but food products
sometimes they are available
sometimes not
On days when I can't find a face
for the body that I have erected
my legs disappear into my own eyes
and stride towards brutal dreams
In my dreams, the butt ends of rifles
My legs become bloodstained as they walk
From nearby the city's legs
chant slogans of the global village at my legs
Tell me if anything can be done
to stop the city's legs which become
more and more brutal
with each new rise of day

The most dangerous thing-
These days our city has started
gorging on human flesh
and the city's legs
are out stalking for prey

This poem was originally printed in the "Koseli" section of Kantipur.