On Failure
My current poem asks me,
Gazing into my eyes,
If by my habit of unpretence,
I give away too many secrets of mine.
Through hundreds and hundreds
Of attempts,
My new poem is not completing.
I swing my head:
From shoulder to shoulder,
Observing spurts of lines coming nearer,
And then vanishing!
My pencil lies in rootedness,
Articulating what stands sadly
Around me – like unbridled passion.
And I am in continual struggle
To find the power to change things.
Alas! Alas!
Failure. I gaze at failure.
I am a failure.
Quiet as it will be:
My unfinished poem will remain a failure.
6th June 2012
Geeta Chhabra