Poetry Of Life Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

[Inspired by the lead from “Irrelevant” by Wesley Rayshawn Garrett III]

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me
How do you distinguish?
Fact from fiction
A couple of pills a night,
From a full blown addiction? ”

Friend, why presume, I wouldn’t believe you,
When I love you so dear?
With my loving empathy,
Certainly can I tell fact from fiction
Just as I can, day from night
Praise from blarney.

We start it off with a just a peg of booze
On a plausible ruse of keeping up our health.
But sooner,
Temptation overtakes us
As we begin to guzzle two full bottles down -
Only to end up in a slow suicide.

A couple of pills once in a while – not bad!
But a couple every night – certainly very odd! !
The difference is only in degree, not contents:
So slow or instant, death is the only option.

Fact could be stranger than fiction.
Neither is exclusively helpful or harmful:
They are complementary
Just like mind and body.

“One’s meat is another’s poison”
So do fact and fiction,
At times, overlap.
When witnesses are doctored
Blind justice takes fact for fiction
Fiction for fact.

Fact is a reality - visible and apparent;
Fiction too is a fact - of fancy, of mind.
Together they make
A consummate poetry of life;
One is classical, the other romantic.

[Aug 15,2005: : Hyderabad - 500 056]