The Old man with Himself

Dr.Sudhansu Dash

Time exiles me to return to myself

Light to the deem eyes, speeches to the dumb lips

My eyes doubts all the seen and the unseen

My broken years laugh at me in the mirror

As I approach the end of this mortal frame

I make every care not to cease my decayed house

A dull head among the windy spaces

Signs are taken for wonders

The word within a word unable to speak a word

Dangling in darkness

To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk among whispers

My history has many cunning passages,

And issues of life have deceived me with whispering ambitions

Guided by vanities.

She comes only when my attention is distracted

And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions

That What’s not believed in, or still believed,        

In memory only with a reconsidered passion.

The refusal creates  a fear.

I see

Neither fear nor courage saves me

 Unnatural vices are fathered by my heroism.

Virtues     are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

These tears are shaken from the eyes

I think at last

I have not reached the conclusion

I have made all the show purposeless

And I would meet you upon this honestly in the wilderness of mirrors

 And an old man, driven to a sleepy corner.