Saturday, February 18, 2006

The prisoner in my mind


It's a lonely walk
On a long winding road
There’s a chill in the air
And it has begun to rain a little
Yet, I walk around.
Not yet ready to go home.

I do this often,
on grey days.
The darkness seeps into me,
And my thoughts.
Rather than pace
On the worn rug of my mind,
I walk it out.
In crowded malls,
And empty parks
Amid the falling maple
And sometimes the naked trees

Yet, it is an empty victory.
I rarely escape the churning of all the questions
The whys and the what if and what nows.
Stay like open beaks
Their cacophony drowning out my sanity
I can walk , but not run away
From the voices in my own head
Only when the volume turns down a little
Do I head back.
Tired , ready to collapse.

I am becoming
My own biggest enemy
And need a sanctuary
From myself.
I could do with an ally or two
But am captive within my own walls.
Just whose brilliant idea,
Was it to throw away the key?

7 comments:

Rajavel said...

nice poem and nice photo to go with it ! cold and sad !

the last two lines, though nice, seems to be forced and doesnt seem to fit the meloncholy in the rest of the poem

bharath said...

nice. really flows. quite a stroll it is among the snow and the silence that comes in the wake.

RamaDrama said...

WoW! I was beginning to frown at the first lines wondering sounds too familiar but as i went along for the walk..the honesty of it pulled me in..with earnest joys!

Vivek Sharma said...

quite a "long" walk through sadness and snow: empty victory was nice touch.

Since I feel some unsatisfaction seeing really good lines mixed with ordinary ones, must ask you: do you rewrite, edit, revise poems? Try to.

bilbo said...

hey sharmajee,
Nice to see on my blog. Nope , I dont rewrite revise or edit. I do revisit. And if they don't feel weird to me on the revisiting , I let them be . otherwise they get trashed. Most of my poems write themselves. So whatever u see is on in one sitting. The poem prolly just came to me as is. I do admit that the last lines in this one feel out of place and forced.
Open to suggestions, though. How would u write this?

Scarlett_OHara said...

Billy,

I loved, loved this one.
Those voices have a life of their own, they will never go away. After a while they blend with other noises is all.

This is crisp poetry, and these lines "Just whose brilliant idea
Was it to throw away the key?"

say it all....

Would you go away though if you still had the key?

Scarlett

bilbo said...

Scary,
I might not go away if I had the key. But then, staying would be my choice . Also freedom is what I am looking for , not an escape.