Incomplete

Took it and threw it inside the well in anxiety.
Water was the first thing I wanted that day,
Ropes slipped, untied.
A bucket floating aimlessly in the stagnant water.
A poem left incomplete, remained incomplete. Forever.

Ran like the crazy Archimedes on the streets to her gate.
A door half ajar, teasing me with its squeaking laughter.
She didn’t show up, again.
A poem left incomplete, remained incomplete. Forever.

Nothing pleases more than a cup of tea and a rusk toast on a sunny morning.
The wet side drowned like the titanic.
All I had was a piece, incomplete like my poem.
Incomplete forever.

– Vikalp Joshi (Words of Wonder)

Lessons

I began the morning to teach my friend
told him once and then twice
but the fool did not listen.

I walked the afternoon to teach my neighbor.
It was a long walk, a kilometer clockwise
but the prude refused to riven.

I returned my home to purge the sister
who was young and naïve;
and all it took me was an hour,
and I gave up my chase.

I lay down after dinner
which god gave not for free,
and as I gave way to sleep,
the lesson was learnt by me.

-Saransh Gupta

Bluebird

There’s a bluebird inside of me
that wants to fly
but will never be free.
“You trap me too tight”
It screams and whimpers,
“I have no choice”,
I shout in return.

It pounds my ribs
each day, each night,
in the hope to fly,
it tries to fight.
“Bluebird, Bluebird, calm down” I say
“you’ll be all alone
if you fly away”

And there are three more blue birds
inside of me
who never learned to fly
and remain on the tree
“Stay with them;
stay down and sit.
They are your brothers;
share their pit”

And I calmed it down
once each night,
until it gave up,
and forgot its flight.
There’s a bluebird inside of me
that wants to fly
but will never be free.

–Saransh Gupta