Chicken

I sit, pen and paper
In the pretence of a poet.
Words fall around. Drunk
Humpty-dumpties that will never
Be on pedestal.

Clichéd emotions sluice
Through tired cerebral grey.
Demonic shapes saunter tempting
Behind heavy velvet curtains.
Poetry freezes.

Like a cockroach caught
In a 100 watt bulb,
She scurries away.
I watch her feelers flee
Into some obscure dark recess.

All I asked was three stanzas of
Verse. Three stanzas full.
One for me, one for me
And one for the little girl
Caught in poetic vanity.

The ceiling fan whooshes
Like a bee in a cyclone.
An asthmatic old man coughing
Yesterday’s dust. A spider spins
A web, just above the broom.

The air is full of vibrant music.
My neighbour’s good mood
Floats like poison gas into
My indigo solitude as I mourn
Her desertion in ink marks.

Nobody hears my banshee howl,
Nobody sees Kali dance in
My backyard. Threatening to
Stamp my ignorance with one
Treacherous godly foot.

All around
Life marches on like a stony soldier
In a Republic Day Parade.
Too imposing in strict starch
To smuggle a wink at me.

The world is upside-down.
I scream gold fish screams in
Glass tank. The bubbles float,
Burst. Like sighs that end before
They begin.

Like a bewildered chicken strung
Upside down from a rusty scooter,
I watch the world sweep past in
Insolence. Chicken-hearted,
I ditch the pen.