Poem - Stop! Private! No thoroghfare!

In the well protected fortress, I call ‘Self’,

I don’t let any intruders in.

The deep distressing shadows of my eyes

Stabbing the passersby, the strangers,

Broadcast an obtrusive alert:

“Stop! Private! No thoroughfare!”

I shut the door, stand guard,

Cagey about those I call my own.

And the canny, eloquent blinks too

Won’t let them into the precincts of 

My vitals - a citadel of flesh and blood 

Painted in the graffiti of

My doubts, my reticent tears, my subdued furies,

My weird, unbridled flights, and 

Some ravishing, seductive fancies, 

Eager to burst out at unearthly hours. 

In that harried, hard-pressed privacy

I want to peg these walls so high,

High above the flight of the birds,

That my blooming fruiting patios

Remain cloaked, hidden beneath the labyrinths,

A maze of self created illusions

Of I, Me, Mine.

  

Where nobody shares

The zing, flavor, fragrance and the tang. 

And I stream and strain the in and out,

And docket the glimpse, the glory, the peep

Of those not yet tried, tested, examined.

As of now I want the walls

Of flesh and blood to be high, higher,

Even confined and chocking.

- Shailendra Aima, May 20, 2018