Camouflage Poem by Murali Sivaramakrishnan

I draw my dreams up tightly
around me every night
and make a soft cocoon of kingly wisdom.
In plain black and white I loll.
No daylight enters through its thick
comfort; no bird drones its sorrow
nor delight- I am alright alone
in my empire of surfeit, successful, content.
On a perpetual knight errand on camel back,
I wear my politics round my waist;
it distends to my pleasure
tightening in a distress of plenitude.
Newspapers hardly interest me.
I find them excellent as flyswatters.
Only my wife broods over worldly hazards
while my children make a hammock of weekend cartoons.
The T.V. dishes out the latest analgesics.
And the glass cases brim with newer olympiads.
Life like a game of snakes and ladders
sucks one often up or down, while like the geckos
on the wall, we wait for the light to draw
one unsuspecting prey after another-
good sprinters to success.
Only the fool plays on while the wise one sleeps
warm inside the cocoon of his kingly wisdom.