Poetry Poem by Praveen Kumar In Shobha Priya

On what can I invoke your muse,
On life or the nature, on self or stray creatures,
On love or passion, on joy or woe?
On what can I build wordy dreams,
On beauty or valour, on past or future,
On strife or pelf, on angel or devil?

The ocean of mind springs myriad waves,
Each rises like a hill and recedes to its hole
In unending succession, all the time;
What can I hold to impale you in words,
What can I wind with arcane hues
To unwind your charms with the shocks of joy?

You wait on the side-stage to dance to tunes
To enter centre-stage, to create new realms
While I choose right backdropp on the stage for you,
Whatever be the scene for you,
Sad or glad, concrete or abstract
Or bare truths of all life and self.

Whatever I catch, slips like live fish,
Whatever I snatch, alas, thins in air
And raises its head at miles' distance;
All is there, yet nothing anywhere;
All runs like a mirage, ahead of me
Till you delve on it with flutters of muse.

You, the gentle queen on inspiration's throne
In splendours of words, rhythms, colours,
Musics and passions in unending layers;
Come, sit on heart, build bridges to the mind,
Bring light to the eyes to choose a carriage
To carry your muse to gentle souls.

Each thing is subtle, each game inveigles,
Each move is new, each whim has a rhyme
While inner sight spurs to warm up with muse;
Torn rags reveal cosmic game's feat,
Dried leaves reveal evolution's secrets
To eyes those pierce dull mechanical sheath.

You pour live words of myriad hues
In forms and shapes and rhythms and depths
That bind each to create a new world;
Thoughts dance to passion's sweet tunes
And rise to life in distinct words;
Lo, poetry surfaces from discontented soul.

The outside world in the inner cauldron
Sublimates to hot soothing vapour
That lingers in soul like poetic notes;
Trivials of the world, while churned in self,
Coagulate soft and sweet precipitates
That raise this world to enlightenment.