I need to be
amongst the leaves
of horrid poetry;
for great is good
no doubt
to also put
the fire out.
I need to read
the prose that’s
dozing to the mind.
with brevity
not levity that stirs
the evil imps
Of illusion
and persuasion
and delusion
and evasion
until I lie there–
a muddled green and
huddled yellow
pile of words.
“…Muddled green and huddled yellow…” It reminds me of the mango trees that I grew up with and the leaves that fell every monsoon after the first rains. Your poem is the musk of sand that filled the air and the kohl lined clouds that came and made the peacocks dance every year. You just sent me back home.It’s, dare I say it, beautiful.
Oh Neha, how really embarrassed I am now. For me to dash off words that
belittle the effect on a writer of reading good writing, and then have a few
lines evoke such lovely imagery in another writer reading that writing. I
apologize that those lines were not the beautiful pictures to me that they
evoked in you, and now feel I have unskillfully wasted them in the intended
vitriol and unpolished lazy triteness of this piece. I am humbled, and will
someday try to salvage those few lines from this to make them worthy of your
memory. Odd too, that your comment makes such a statement regarding the
reader’s perception and thus his part in making words come alive.