Where does my poetry surface the best?
Where do my emotions aren't shy to come out?
Where does my poetry feel safest?
It seeks disposable scraps of paper,
It seeks disposable scraps of paper,
Ruffled, frayed, crumpled chits of paper,--
An old bill of no use now;
some shopkeeper's calculating scrawl;
some time-worn receipts;
some redundant acknowledgments,
Anything that has no value anymore
to lay claim to something higher
than some defeated verses.
My poems, my emotions' offsprings
seek these dustbinned items
and cling to them
like autumnal dew clings to fresh roses,
Both are unrequired expressions
beyond monetary valuation,--
One of a petty task done,
The other just lost pieces
of a necklace broken by time and people,
Both are floating around to cling
to some similar worthless fragments.
The scraps and chits of paper look
eager to voluntarily enter their grave,
The verses avoid shiny, sleek pages
and well-bound diaries,
or a flower-bordered, fragrant paper,
or the shiny screen of a notepad,
or costly computer,
or a precious smartphone,
They are afraid of them, these verses mine,
Like a beggar scared of a palatial bungalow,
They seek poor quarters,
where they won't feel
the shame of their nakedness,
where they can merge
with the filth, squalor and misery,
They just need a poor quarter
to hide and feel safe and alive,
They just need poor, soiled clothes
to hide their poor, pathetic body,
They merely seek something
that's of no use to humans,
Maybe they want to hide
even from their own self,
They are looking for things
that are even more valueless
than the paper scraps in a dustbin.
