Death of A Poem

In a few hours from now
they’d pull down the shutters
and leave a stark street
to a poet’s imagination
as he’d grope in the dark alleys,
burnt on cigarettes
and cheap whiskey,
wondering
where in this pool of scrap
he’d find the foetus
of his once deserted poem.

But I’ve known many a poet
who in the stench of their thoughts
have lost the serendipitous joy
of constructing unsuspecting metaphors
that would cense the bosom
of their once shared love with their muses.
They stumble back now
to this scrap
of what the world was, what it could be
rummaging for their once aborted themes.

© Dan Husain
April 14, 2006