The Poet

In his lips was written submission.

His moon shaped beard neatly combed,

deep set eyes seeping into melancholia.

I could smell an earthy bohemian scent

trailing from his musky brown soul,

testifying his attachment to the sun-drenched soil.

Here's the one who's been seasoned through living-

The way it unfolds to a poet only.

Not surprisingly his shirt was modest, though clean

and so was his yellowing lungi.

They say he has a scrapbook of two hundred poems,

Handwritten, 

As he couldn't get them typed.

I've heard him reciting his poem,

Stirring a rhapsody of lingering aromas,

and I won't be lying if I tell you,

melancholy oozed out

from each syllable of that rendition.

His droopy eyes averted the audience,

And it upset me. Deeply.

As said, I've seen your lilting voice phoenix like,

regenerating into ripples,

Ripples that curve the order of the universe.

Bipasha Haque is a diaspora writer with particular interest in life-the way it is. By profession she is a university teacher.