A Poet Died

A Poet Died

"Once upon a time",
On an empty street,
Poetry touched him.
And ever since,
He groped
In emptiness.

He used to sit by the window
In afternoons
His hands shivered in cold.
The sun had no warmth
Just a glowing dot
Like the tip of a cigarette.

Love visited often
The address written
On pale envelopes.
But no flowers ever blossomed,
Poems grew
Like weeds.

He had little ladders
He kept them between the lines
To reach one's heart.
And he wrote with his gift
Many a letters
That ended in trash.

On a sad evening, yesterday,

He stole a poem 

From his soul

And wrote it on the sky.

Dark!

A candle flickered,

Dim...

And melted 

Before its time.

Yesterday,
He read the epilogue
All to himself,
On the same old street
He sat and cried.

Yesterday,
Was just another day,
For, no one noticed it;
Not even the man
Sitting beside him.
Yesterday,
A poet died.

(c) Ankur Srivastava