Unpossessed Poem by Ananta Madhavan

(Musing of a graduate student, coming to the metropolitan university on a meagre allowance in 1958, but eager to excel) .



Not for me, these blatant riches –
Serried allurement – mocking
The coins jingling in my pocket.


No avarice assails me as I watch
What, after all, had best be understood
As a vulgar display of consumer goods.


Hard flash of chromium and natty dummies,
Preening their prices for my observation;
‘Sir, you may stare on without obligation’.


Not for me these either, tripping by,
Dainty in enchantment, tossing a wisp
Of fugitive perfume, deaf to the lisp


Of finger tips that would be eloquent;
Now in my fist I clench my muffled anger,
Swathed in a mist of futile longing.


When next I tread along this pavement,
I must encase these unpossessed in glass,
Safe from my yearning as I pass.


- - - - - -

-