A Battered Dream Poem by Prafulla Kumar Panda

Long ago,
i threw my dream into the sky
hoping it might return with an alloy
of the rainbow,
to tickle my love to glow like a spark
from my tattered rib-cracks
and goad me to pick
some spirited, and beatified life-tips
then I'll climb up unto the top of that hill
and hip and hop, and there I do swing and shrill
until my heart with pleasure fills
and wakes up the spring to bring
a basketful of blossoms from a cherry tree
to sew garlands for her twenty-three

donned with them from head to feet
she'll rise with a buoyant beat
and like a dove
unto me, she'll move
with her short, graceful feet
then she will, with much pleasure thrill
and to me, with countless wild kisses fill

lo! It's returned
with a shower of teary-rain
when I lie in my courtyard
basking the morning sun;
it's torn between lightening and storm
and with a mind full of oblivion
drowsy and downcast and with no vow
as downcast as I am now.

©Prafulla Panda, India.
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