What Will Online Poets Do? Poem by PARTHA SARATHI PAUL

Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth. (The Bible)

Do poets only grow and count
the number of fig trees grown
in their personal Forest of Arden?

Is each of them a repository of wit?
Like a sage of the East?
Or just a lotus eater idealist
that loves to suck the mythical elixir
from some fanciful pansies?

Do they serve to communities
societies and above all humanity?
Art is never just an elite decorative piece
to adorn the crowns in echelons.

Is poetry not the queen of all arts?
With the hallow of many cosmic rays?
But do the divine shafts reach out to
the remotest corners of this gigantic globe?

Is the blessing of creation
just to attain selfish gratification?
Patriotic and devotional poems
have passed on to the G-4 generation
in the hands occupied with latest gadgets.

Some stern norms of all poetry sites
block out loudly bold poems that shout against
iron hands and modern monarchs
and stand by the blessed souls.