Double Face Poem by Valsa George

Double Face

Rating: 5.0


In a never sleeping metropolis
In the dungeon of a room
My days and nights are locked!
I, a traveler on a street, with no end in sight
But just the bustle of the moving crowd
And a handful of burnt dreams
For company

My ‘kingdom’ is in the third floor
Of an old street building
Now languishing in neglect
Facing dilapidation
Just like my own life
In the chronic agony of existence!


While the adjacent buildings
Renovated and restored
Mine, under a bankrupt landlord
Is on the verge of instant collapse

Looking through the chinks in the wall
And craning my neck
Over barricades of buildings
Amid the swirl of traffic
I get a glimpse of the slum below
In all its squalor and dirt
And a medley of lousy images
Bleeding into one another like water colours

Now and then, I see
Beggars in bundled rags
Along cracked pavements
Some squatting
Some sleeping away to glory
With street dogs
Coming to share
The leftovers in their begging bowls
And lick their wounds!
Sometimes I take away my glance
From the dismembered corpses of the dead!

On another side
In plush residential colonies
With landscaped courtyards
And cerulean swimming pools
Sentries stand on guard
To admit Sahibs
Sliding in Mercedes and Rolls Royce

A little far, in the open balconies
Of star hotels,
Men toast goblets of wine!

Oh! What stark divide! ! !

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Pradip Chattopadhyay 31 July 2013

Sometimes I take away my glance From the dismembered corpses of the dead a deeply moving poem, sad, the divide between god's own image!

0 0 Reply
R.j. Wynn 31 July 2013

Crazy good. I love it.

0 0 Reply
Hazel Durham 31 July 2013

A bleak picture of reality so beautifully written, a sad reflection on society!

0 0 Reply
Lyn Paul 01 August 2013

The rich just get richer, I hope one day I will be rich so I can share it around. Yet knowing it will not go far....

0 0 Reply
Kumarmani Mahakul 30 May 2019

This is a beautiful poem on reality having insightful inscription. Appropriate title. Nice penmanship. I appreciate it.10

0 0 Reply
Indira Renganathan 07 February 2019

Excellent with beautiful descriptive expressions...ending line lifts the poem to the top....very interesting and inspiring Valsa

0 0 Reply
Souren Mondal 25 January 2016

Reading this poem actually reminded me of a small but very significant incident that happened when I was just nineteen and was in the second year of my college. Our head of the department asked me to read Baudelaire and said - 'You will be appalled'.. I went ahead and read two of his poems from 'Fleur du Mal', and went back to tell him - 'They were not appalling at all'.. He simply smiled and said read Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 116', and Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind' before reading Baudelaire. I did it, and I found how apalling Baudelaire were. Your poem is just like that in its emphasis on the CONTRASTING images.. The different images of people from different sections of the society actually emphasises the misery of the poor and the excess of the rich. A powerful, and strikingly beautiful write Valsa ma'am. Thank you very much for sharing....

1 0 Reply
Valsa George 25 January 2016

Feel so flattered! Thank you Souren!

0 0
Souren Mondal 25 January 2016

Reading this poem actually reminded me of a small but very significant incident that happened when I was just nineteen and was in the second year of my college. Our head of the department asked me to read Baudelaire and said - 'You will be appalled'.. I went ahead and read two of his poems from 'Fleur du Mal', and went back to tell him - 'They were not appalling at all'.. He simply smiled and said read Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 116', and Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind' before reading Baudelaire. I did it, and I found how apalling Baudelaire were. Your poem is just like that in its emphasis on the CONTRASTING images.. The different images of people from different sections of the society actually emphasises the misery of the poor and the excess of the rich. A powerful, and strikingly beautiful write Valsa ma'am. Thank you very much for sharing.

0 0 Reply
Akhtar Jawad 23 November 2014

A painful contrast of our society, nicely described, the distance between the two results in violence. A very thoughtful write.

0 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Close
Error Success