No, I'm Not A Poet Poem by Rajnish Mishra

A poet I'm not, not always, not every day.
Reluctant and rare my poems come to me,
At times, not even welcome, to me.
One knock I hear, faint yet clear.
I have no mind nor time for it.
I'm a busy professional in a busy city, you see.
How can I be at ease, stand still, serene, calm,
And think? Mine is the lane, mine is the race,
And now is the time: get set go.
Carpe diem, gather your stocks, the sun is shining.
Why sit licking wounds, weeping and whining?

That night I just caught that train.
Did not return, did not stay
At home, just left and rushed to work.
What was it? Inertia, inaction,
Prophetic soul? My granny's eyes, the Prince and I,
Pathetic both, with self-inflicted wounds and pain,
Nostalgia: missing home.

They're wrong who say that home is
Where heart is. No, it's actually where stomach is,
And job is, and monthly paycheck is, and savings account.
Heart is gentle, what worst can it do?
Compare that to stomach's doings and see
who wins. Stomach, once aroused, rumbles and grumbles
And pushes the body it owns, our body, around.

So, a hundred less thousand kilometres away,
I've come to the city of routines, where I stay,
From the city of light where life lived, once -
Hated, and tried to flee from too -
But that's another story for some other day.
So, I could not stay, a moment more.
Decades it took for roots to grow,
Not hours to sever, pack and go.