Outside Your Door Poem by Pratip Sen Gupta

It is evening again
And the dreary rain
Falls incessantly
As if to wipe away
The pavements
And leave behind
New paths
Furrows
That lead to nowhere
And if they do
They lead me back
To the beginning
Of you

The lonesome thought
Wanders
In the darkness
Of a falling evening
There are no shadows
But those that
Fell
On the breast
Many years ago

The petulance
Of the lover
Denied
Continues to meander
In the songs
That echo
In the ears
Of the mind

Did she not know
That there was no denial
In the desecration
Of the soul
Only an solitude
Too long
And an evening
In waiting
For the lamps

Did she care so much
That every
Innuendo
Of another
Left her with
A certitude
Of desertion
And she turned
Her face away
For mine

Did she love
Or want to be
I do not know
For the turmoil
Engendered
In the angst
Of another expression
Leads me from
Pub to pub
And I leave behind
My emptied mugs
And take away
A souvenir
To be embalmed
In the crystal cabinet
Of an experience

How can I express
That the soul
Is insatiated
And the search
Is without end
For what I seek
Is not to be found
In the alleys
Of this world

Nor all my forays
In this accursed
Search
For a salvation
Led me from the altar
To your door

You may close
The door
Or leave it open
It matters not
For my quest
Tosses me
Like a battered
Ship
On the wild waters
Of meaninglessness

It may find rocks
On which to perish
Or a land
That has no water
That may quench
My thirst

The end will be just the same
A lost exploration
Of an undefined fixation
Outside your door

Pratip
25 May 2006