Desolation

(Read this a long time ago in an autobiographical called "My God Died Young" by Sashthi Brata. A fan ever since)

i looked with eyes of wasteful grey,
i glimpsed the brittle words that fell
from lips of china, broken glass
helpless glitter that gold can tell.
sighs were woven in my thoughts
that rose and fell and came again.

some words had meaning, others none;
i could tell them by the way they came.
their limping gait, their wayward dress,
by the easy graceful way they fled.
some would die, i'd bury them
in some brass vase stored away.
and some could burn like incense flame
at cold queer feet of heartless clay

i parted with the ways that be,
from a homely happy future hell.
i feared some works which came to life
in the silver land with secret spells.
i plucked them out with trembling hands
and bled my heart in doing so.
for lips of china, silvered glass,
can never kiss the vibrant soul.

i spoke with lidless eyes that were
enmeshed in dreams that dreamers know.
i saw one vacant dreamless world,
lonesome, weary, painful, slow

- Sasthi Brata