Some days I don't feel it,
Let alone be possessed by it;
earth is just an everyday earth,
sky is just an everyday sky—only a boring blue expanse;
trees, on those days, don't twine around a beautiful rhyme,
daffodils don't dance on pond's edge,
clouds don't fly from place to place,
thoughts don't slink like a sly fox
through the trapdoor of my head;
it's just me and my badass pen,
and the words that I write
is a bunch of bull busted open in a chaotic stampede
in the middle of the page.
Where is that fine frenzied eye rolling,
turning my pen to give substance to airy nothing?
Can it be an invisible traffic-man squatting somewhere within my brain,
blocking my thoughts' prolific train?
Can bribing the traffic-man be of any help?
Can there be any help?
Yes, there comes a mouse,
(he comes always)
my deus ex machina,
peeping through my kitchen's door,
competing with me for the last crumb of bread
in an unequal class struggle.
How sweet the smell of the “class” and “struggle” is!
Suddenly I am back on my trade again,
eyes roll, thoughts’ train moves with ease.
All I know is the mouse opens a road
to my mind's foul rag-and-bone shop.
There I buy my stuff,
and I never have to stop.
Onward I just plod ...
Yasif Ahmad Faysal is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Barisal