I Am The Man With The Fly's Eyes Poem by umashankar manthravadi

I am the man with the fly's eyes

I am the man with the fly's eyes
you may say my sectored vision
is a distortion
but for me the sectored
repeated unrelated pattern
that is always there
till the gummed tongue darts out
is the truth

my vision
of death as the gummed tongue
is the truth
much as your black fear is

death stalking on suckered feet
is white. catch it by its tail
and the tail already dying is left
but death moves on to grow a new tail
and stalk with its gummed tongue on its suckered feet

I am the man who with the fly's eyes
sees death in the sectored vision
(a change in the squares, new fall in the coloured glass)
whenever the patterns change)

March 4,1977