[Poem] A reminder of our times

Once a man walked on a road

From his footsteps sprouted an army
merely to degenerate into many nodes
From each node, popped out a head
To challenge each head, then grew another one

From each challenger, sprouted a fresh node
The fresh nodes gave birth to a counter-army,
an underground one
This counter-army paved its own road

While the heads and their opponents
were lost in their utopian parlays,
the army and its nemesis fought
with many weapons, big and small

The road and its rival met at a crossroad,
to clash in a flash and retreat, headless

Today, on a road headed nowhere, stand
the heads and their armies
with nowhere to go


Vijay © 19th April, 2007
(Inspired by M. Pushpangadhan’s Malayalam Poem “Vazhiyillapokkar”)