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Passing through worlds of words,
Whither his destination he knew not,
Yet, over letters and strokes he ponders,
Over promises abandoned and oaths long forgotten.
What once was a torrent, now lay dammed;
What once was his passion, now lay dead,
Crippled, choked and broken beyond recognition.
Psalms sung in euphoric moments had gone mute;
Throttled by fists of steel gloved in myriad hues.


Stories of gods felling demons, retold a million times, a million ways.
“Grampa get to the part where fire fights water!
How did they get fire trucks to the field right on time?”
Thus were born a million tales, with every retelling.
Ten headed demon in one, a daughter’s loving father in another.
Stories in paint, given new shades, long after the brush is dropped.
Saffron and green, the bullets galore, beaching creative bodies ashore.
Verses of God and the Devil mixed freely in days yonder.
And subjects captured by cartoonists instead of the other way around.


All this he thought about, his easel, staring;
Eased on it a canvas, with bloodshed, rife.
The instrument of death the right of his hand held,
Yet was it rightly handled, he never did know.
A creator of words, turned destroyer, Damocles sword on his jugular.
Swords to kill words, to save his livelihood and life too.
With every name and description an offense to one and many,
With newer dragons breathing down his neck he grimaced,
At the flock of “is” and “was” being the only non-offending words on his manuscript.