on a sea strand,
have you watched empty shells
mercilessly tossed from sea to shore
and from shore to sea?
      
often I shrink and reduce to such a shell,
with jagged and broken edges
colorless and empty

among many a debris cast on the shore,
i lie half buried under the sand
waiting for some mighty wave
to wash me away
all the way to the sea

how tedious is my voyage
shuttling from him to her
and from her to him
unable to openly confess
who weighs more
on the balance of preference

through how many alleys and by ways
I have wandered, questioning my identity!
am I a puffer fish, being toxic
the fisher men have discarded?
a jarring note in a discordant symphony?
I wonder....! I often ask myself!

destined to grow
in mercurial climes,
planted in arid shallow soil
with the tap root trimmed,
branches pruned,
growth denied,
I, a stunted bonsai!

still I dream to be a towering tree,
that in profusion gives fruits and shade!
a ****** aspiring to be a Goliath
a hollow reed,
longing at once to be the singer and the song!

On a walk companioned by my Muse along the sylvan meadows
We wandered away to delightful realms in unclouded ambience
Don’t know how long I rambled warming my fancies in sunset fires
Must be for long, all lights were out, the quiet hamlet lay bathed in sleep

Above  me, stood the starry firmament and the half hidden moon
Could see the vast plains stretching before me in moonlight, bare
My heart was flooded with joy, my fancies took to wings
Got drowned in Nature’s serene calm, my spirit lost in drunken ecstasy

In the gentle blowing breeze, the leaves twittered and murmured
All else was quiet and nothing disturbed the serenity of the night
But soon I knew the East wind strengthening around into a gale
And across the moon I could see stragglers of clouds moving past

I sat on a rock, lost, so lost staring into the clear night sky
Wondering how the celestial joy, made manifest by the twinkling stars
My thoughts began floating like a ship over the briny waters
And my temporal settings faded away like a cloud in the horizon

From the nearby woods, I heard the song of a lone night bird
In rising cadence, alone and aloud it fell on my rapturous ears
Was it a nightingale that poured forth that dewy delight?
Was it the same song, Keats heard long ago cascading from the woods?

      With my Muse in this unearthly hour let me sit awhile in this solitary bower
To my paper, let my fancies in unbroken crystal streams flow
Wonder if I can rightly recreate the image that my thoughts enfold
How I wish, I could like Coleridge, build a pleasure dome in mid air!

Comment pouvons-nous
Invoquer un poème sans
Voyelles ou consonnes?

What other kind              of creature could divide        
        Each different thing             into its different sides                
  With chaos versus             order, dark and light
The stark duality of         wrong and right
We even split the very        world in two
With human versus human,       we and you
But still no matter how much      we divide
Each thing has infinitely many      sides