You Might Not Choose to Read These Lines

by Bibhu Padhi (November 2015)

There is no question, no urgency

in seeking inconclusive answers.

No desire for change and occasions;

even the wishes, vague as always,

seem to have turned more vague,

like the very thoughts they issue from.

The mind’s mirror is clean, sparkling;

it reflects nothing, only meditating

on itself, its customary behaviour,

its habit of choosing the truth of its reflections.

The world is there  not there, here, not here.

it doesn’t matter so long as I am what I am—

as I always was, will be, only preserved

through each spectacle and speech, each word

and gesture, each beat of the heart and veins,

each failed beat, each sound and its echo.

This morning it is slowly growing into the night

from which it came, in my sleep, in every sleep.

There aren’t any dreams now, just as

there were not any in my most recent sleep.

And, as I hold this pen I am my own

master and slave, dictating each word and line,

taking each morning purposelessly,

without the shadow of a thought;

I know, somewhere it feels nice to be so.

___________________________

Bibhu Padhi’s tenth book of poems, Midnight Diary, has just been published. He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, India.

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