of gods and beggars and lonely nights

There are times when i match the most powerful gods in history.
When i feel i can give shape to any moment there is, any feeling there was, will be.

Pain, pleasure,
Envy, emptiness,
Traveling at twelve in the night through Delhi’s streets,
See those guys riding on a rickety motorcycle,
One whispering who knows what secrets
In the ear of the other.

There are times when i can create the whole world
Just with these words and the silence in-between.
And then, there are times when i don’t get this power,
these nano-particles of immortality.
It is then,
that I feel i’m a beggar in the realms of men.

That is what poetry does to you.
There are no middle grounds in poetry.

That is the unending agony of my craft.
I’m a god and a beggar before that first draft.

 

-adee, delhi, 22/12/14

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