Attached to it

To be leftOn the footpaths of life,The crossroads of life,Are they,They for to die?The old mind-set,Mind-set of IndiaNever did I,Did I admire it,Admire it,Old Indian mentality.

And you if sad and lonely,Heartbroken and forlorn,My confidence I shall lose it.It is your love which has but turned into a loverAnd an unknown singer of love,Ay, the singer of heart,So, if you in the sighs and sobs,The eye-lashes splashed with tears,My brush fall from the handsAnd shall I fail in making a sweet…

Who is he,The WordsworthOr KeatsOr YeatsOr LawrenceOf Odisha,Who, who is he?WordsworthAs for serenity, quietude,Silence prevailing in,Keats as for sensuousnessAnd relationship,Yeats for symbolism,Myth-makingAnd Lawrence forIntricacies of human relationships,Love, sex and sexuality?

Colloquial speech,Want I to catch,The cadence and intonation of it,The sound-breaks and word-tracks of itBy being a folk singer,A folk singerAnd a folk dancer,A folk painterMaking in her or his own,Sketching and drawingOn the scrolls of paper.The rhythm of life, the rhythm of speechTalk I,Copy I by giving an ear,Hearing it,What does it mean to…

Calling themselves poets,Small poets too not,Great poets,I mean the great poets of IndiaBut many a man have I seen,Many a scholarWho used to write beautifullyBut never called themselves poetsAs scholars they were no doubt,What does it make a differenceIf the edolence of the flowerPraised or not.

The man and the poet,As have only heard about him,The man who made a beginning decades ago and vanished outFrom the literary sceneAnd was tracelessAs a poet for many yearsBut resurfacing again with hisTrying to Say Goodbye and The Right Kind of Dog.But as a journalist he had been thereDoing the journalistic write-ups, tidbits,Editing and…