Voyage On The Dark Seas Poem by indira babbellapati

I’ve seen all
I’ve heard all
I’ve absorbed all

Routine dawns fading into
Ruthless dusks into
Ravaging nights…

Haven’t I heard
Nights wailing like
An abandoned infant
At the street end?

Haven’t I felt
The leprous skin
Of the night—
Ugly and haunting?

Haven’t I heard
The palpitating nights
Breaking into an
Uncontrollable sweat?

Haven’t I seen
Nights showing defiance
In reluctant surrender
And cold embraces?

Haven’t I seen
Nights raise in rebellion
Against an unwilling body
And disinclined mind?

Haven’t I absorbed
Nights of callousness
Stomping me under
Hitler’s heavy boots?

I simply looked in disinterestedness
As night’s finger lifted with the pointedness
Of a cartographer to draw new lines of longitude
and latitude on the terrain of my skin-scape

I simply looked in passivity
As nights wrapped me in a blanket of suspicion
And experimented with my emotional
And bodily contours…

Haven’t I seen the ugly manifestations of
Dissatisfaction and jealous
And the elsewhere desires
Satiated through erotic zones?

This too I have seen:
Stark daylight mocking me
With its twisted lip

No longer, I said
No more, I warned
Enough, I pronounced
Of this seemingly unending
Lonesome voyage through the dark seas

And that too have I seen...

13mar2010
03.40hrs