Friday, April 15, 2011

Creaky verse

I have never told you this but
sometimes
I stay up all night
only to try and write poetry for you.

Sometimes I weave verses beautiful enough
to make me sleep soundlessly for a week afterwards
but sometimes it just doesn't work, this writing thing,
it wears me down, the way scratching initials
into a rock with my bare fingernails does.
I scrape as hard as I can, for as long as I can,
but when the open window turns navy blue
and I'm still lost for words, it's only alright to give up.

Tonight
seems to be another of those lessons in futility,
five and a half hours have passed
and I have barely five decent lines to show myself.

Pretty soon, my fingertips will be sore,
my eyelids will start to droop,
the dawn will arrive with its pompous cavalcade in blue
and I'll want to retreat into the blanket's quiet anonymity
but before that happens,
know this, my dear sleeping beauty,
I did try.

5 comments:

Radhe Shyam Adidam said...

Makes one ponder if one can find beauty not only in a finished statue but also in the process of making it !!!

aminura said...

Poetry-writing is so fulfilling an experience because it enables one to enjoy self-effacement. anonymity, solitude, langour even-these are as essential as the ink, the pen and the paper(or the word doc). and your evocative verses express them all...
"cavalcade in blue"-i loved the phrase.

Anonymous said...

You write so well. :)

All your poems are so beautifully written.

Basanth said...

Super title.

And dear sir, for an eminent writer like you, you are falling in line with the maestros... in going through the labor pains. Well captured.

Anonymous said...

So who is this wonder woman?? :) :)


beautiful. :)