Cathexis

M. Zaman

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Poetry or not, vagaries of life will still feel
prickly; love or no love, things-that-matter
will still be overwhelming; God or no God,
life’s journey will still be a perilous journey.

This is not about the aboutness of myself
or of my poetry or of anything else under
the folds of heathen Gods. Neither celestial
nor interstellar; it’s the obelisk of hope.

Neither Calliope nor Erato is my forte; not
even Sappho, the tenth. I do not write for
posterity or for some transcendent euphemism.
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When the mind is fenestrated through and
through, when ennui engulfs the total being
like a shroud of death, poetry seeps in;

Butea (Flame of Forest) blooms and sets this
sinking heart ablaze.