Fishing for Love

Fishing for Love

A half done bridge stands
Poking into the breasts of the sea
Rusting metals clothed in algae
And bits of time hanging loose on them

On a rounded anchor hook
I, worm
Half alive, head down
Is dipped into the sea
Slightly dazed and anesthetized

Alice in wonder sea
From this painless state
Wrapped merely in a cellophane of words

And a dash of silence
That I use frequently
To erase fractured dreams

Folded starfishes
Shimmering coral islands
Around which
The hypnotized sea throbs

Scary toothed sharks
Hello how are you?
And a horsefish without hooves

I assure you
At this depth
The sea is hermetically calm
Unlike on the surface

The worm on the hook
Head down

No wonder
The world looks topsy turvy
At times I forget, kindly remind me
Am I the hunter or the hunted?

There is a measly tug on the hook
Hesitant at first
Insistent now

Perhaps
I have been out hunting
For too long

Back from the inertia of the deep sea
To this inverted world
I can no more see the verticals of reason
Nor the horizontals of dreams
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Voyage Series & Other Poems 2007
Copyright@ Pen Books Pvt Ltd