There is nothing in this empty poem
To keep you company.
Not that I did not try to innovate metaphors
So as to replete the void;
But all of them,
Without exception,
Were blown to smithereens –
The fragments disappearing into thin air.
First to go was a bird I’d sketched
Which flew off the page
Into the deep blue sky,
As if it were never there in the first place.
And even if you were to look at the sky now,
There is nothing but blue.
Next was adumbrated a Royal Bengal tiger
Which I had to run away from
Since it threatened to gobble me up.
And by the time I returned
To ascertain its motives
(for the safety of my readers),
It had eaten itself
To satiate the void.
Or did the void chugalug it!
One could never tell,
Even if one were the tiger.
Since then I have gone,
Hither and yon –
Emptiness is the only leitmotif to be identified,
Whatever we look at.
The discerning reader must’ve already realized –
Loneliness in fact, looks just like that.