The Last Poem

I have lay uneasy for three days,

As not a word of my last poem got written,

My heart weighs a ton –

It finds no outlet.

 

I have consoled my heart

In a thousand ways,

Yet its defiance seems immutable,

Its stance a rubik’s cube puzzle.

 

I had thought that the last poem

Would be the easiest to write,

Where I would pour out my

Life’s reverence for life.

 

But still I must write my last poem

Before I delete all of them,

And live with cool grit,

Waiting for the eternity to settle.

 

I could go on writing poems

But it wouldn’t make sense,

As art needs an audience,

Without which it is a one-handed clap.

 

The old grandeur of poetry is dead now,

As today’s smart find joy

In direct physical adventures,

And Wall St. lotteries.

 

Today poetry is a bum,

A work of the old fogies,

Or frail spinsters,

Or of jobless yo-yo’s.

 

Oh! the time is out of joint,

But yet I must finish my last poem,

Hang my poetry-boots,

And walk happily toward the horizon.

 

 

Suffern, New York, December 23, 2016

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com