Lost in the Streets of my Mind

11th June 2012

 Lost in the Streets of My Mind


Is it the fifth cross or the twenty fifth,
am on seventh main or forty seventh main,
is this a narrow gully or a well laid out road,
is it lit with lights of all those who knew and lived,
or it is darkened to the core that its soul is engulfed 
in the sorrow of the lost,
is this a small bridge or the highway connecting the next city,
are the eyes and images that pass through in the street - real or imagined,
is that me who talked to that grand old man in the street 
or the woman,
who sold to me a paper toy for which I had no use, 
real

I am lost in the streets of my mind

the river that flows near the city - will it continue to bear the sins of the city,
where will the dead go
if the living need to live, dead need to be killed
is the old the new or the new the old
are the gutters open,
sometimes stinking with the filth 

I am lost in the streets of my mind


The drugs - the power - the chemicals,
that the canals of blood flowing in the city
sometimes injected sometimes taken - but always dissolving - 
trying to design a new city
making it urban or 
still trying to grow small kitchen gardens 
in the living rooms closed to sunlight
the bonsai plans 
with bonsai brains
can they compete with me
to challenge me to tell me that they have more power over me -
much more than I can ever have over me

I am lost in the streets of my mind

Spider webs, networks, the labyrinths,  
the war that happens on and on
the vehicles that run on the roads, 
the honks that irritate and imitate the drivers
the wheels that run as if the man is still 
only the paths are running
running like the escalators of the many city malls 
that crushed the small shopkeepers
who are now selling themselves from door to door


I am lost in the streets of my mind


Does it matter to the street, who passes it everyday, every minute 
does it make any difference to the man who passed the street,
what street the man passed
yet street retains the sand of the feet - 
sometimes for some fleeting moments it does retain 
the foot marks of the feet 
that demolished the sand of the street
then they fly - the marks - 
replaced with the new layers of foot marks
but the layers remain
each foot mark remains
retained 
in the light of sudden loneliness of the wanderer 
that I become from time to time
each foot mark comes back in the flashes of lightening that engulf the city lights in its own luminosity


I am lost in the streets of my mind


The city, its history, the canals, the rivers, the gullies, the words,
the people more dead than alive - some living dead, 
where are the wanderers the beggars 
the eyes of hunger
the plight of plunder
the guile of thunder
the life of grandeur 
its all gone when I meander from the moment to the moment next

may be its better that 


I am lost in the streets of my mind!