What Do They Go On Doing? Do You Know It? I Mean The Journalwallahs, The Petty Men Of Literature Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The little-little men edit the literary journals
And the little-little men after
As subscribers-cum-contributors,
Aspiring to be reviewer-poets

And many of them rhymers, poetasters, non-poets and commoners,
Wanting to be the men of literature,
The common-common men
Writing commonly

The editor an Indian guru
And the subscribers his chelas in the ashrama
And all taking ganja, smoking in
Through the chillum

The poet and the critic and the poet-critic
All thinking themselves, great poets,
Great poets of India,
Never to be born after,
Difficult to find alike

But the poetaster editor editing the journal as for
To promote his own poetry under the pretext of editing,
Serving literature selflessly
And the subscriber subscribing as for to
Get his things published in the small journal
To be a paper-writer or an official critic or a poet

The editor has not even a collection of poems
And the subscriber collecting the scattered poems
For writing a paper on his poetry
To be published in his journal or friendly ones
And the poetaster editor too feeling himself a great boss,
A connoisseur of literary art.