Who am I?

valsa-george Poems

‘What a piece of work is a man!’ ……… ……… And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust’ From Shakespeare, through Hamlet It rings down to generations And falls heavily on my ears too In vain, I attempt to probe into the mystery Nay, the enigma called man Both in the silence of my solitude And in the learned circle of pundits (Fool….. Unable to find who you are Can you venture to say who the other man is?) Man is a jumble of contradictions, I know….A hard nut to crack! So unfathomable, so mysterious At once a Satan and an angel To the outer world I am someone But in the well guarded cellars of my privacy Aren’t I different? Hiding my innards to light As every other man At times, I feel so proud Excessively in love with my own image Like Narcissus, the poor hunter boy Fated by gods to languish On the bank of a pond, Over his own floating image! However with all my strength within Do I not feel as helpless as Prometheus bound? Waiting for a Hercules to come And save me from my plight If Prometheus’ ******* was God willed Mine is self willed…! Is the difference so very crucial? Sometimes I feel I am Janus Looking backward and forward Into my past and my future Never living in the present Or am I more a Sisyphus Eternally rolling a rock over to the hill From where it keeps falling down Sometimes I wonder Amid the splendor, do I not starve? Like Tantalus of Greece in the pool Beneath the tree, with the low lying branches of fruits Constantly eluding his grasp And the water, ever receding before He could take a drink! As a poet how I wish I could Equate myself with Calliope Carving my mind on the wax tablet With stylus, my pen and coloring it with my fancy Or Orpheus, so skilled in music That with my sad musings I can make even Hades weep And the rocks fall in line I shudder to be a Medusa Turning everyone to a stone With my sinister glance! Instead, I want to be one of the Graces And never one among the Gorgons Pitched in this gallery Of queer mythological entities I wonder how I appear to others And whom I resemble more!