Long Journey Ahead (Revised) Poem by Sathya Narayana

Blinking at the bright light, I thought
'I'm all set for a long journey
through numerous unfamiliar routs;
a promised joy-pain potpourri! '

'From where I started; go I where?
I might have done this trip before,
but lost my past at my last halt.
A thawed horizon's melted door
I left and passed through many a vault
and flushed out by a tidal bore
to reach this place oh by default.'

'I signed a pact or gestured yes
to some tacit contract to bind
myself to oblivion, I guess;
ere woke up finding me entwined
a coiled lump like in this foul mess.'

Ending my muse, I gazed forward
to find two pairs of coolest eyes
looking into my eyes! O' God
they have white masks of grand disguise
and shiny blades of steel in hands
dripping with blood and wiry bands
of flesh. Whom did they cut and prise?

Then came a sudden knock on my
frail back, first as a tender pat
then started speeding up; O' my
O' my, with sounds like thud, thud, phat!

I tried to shout, 'Hey stop you freak!
My mumbled lips produced no sound.
Oh continued their battery
with rhythmic beat in timbre loud.

This time on my belly as well!
I felt so vulnerable and weak.
I tried to weep out of this hell.
I tried again; this time a shriek.
With force expelled a shrilling yell.

The hitting had slowed down somewhat
to a systematic patting fast
with measured rhythm like horse's strut
on my back-street. Heartened at last
I shrieked again from depths of gut
aloud, a hysterical lambast.

The hitting did cease, all abrupt.
After a flash of grim silence I heard
my captors shouting with delight
'The baby cried; the baby cried! '