Each
in his cubicle of unyielding walls
With
spreadsheets of hours of calculated loss
And
interests of compounded hate.
My
acrobatic words
Now
misstep their leaps
And
crash their bones along walls.
Springs
and ladders now can’t be of help
When
maps of lands beyond walls are lost.
Caving
my head within files and screen
I’ve
typed my bones with care.
So
here’s my urn to the future unborn:
Build
all your thunders or burn.
Note: According to an Indian legend Dadhichi,
a great sage, realising that his bones were the only way by which the gods could
defeat the demons willingly gave his life in a pit of mystical flames he
summoned with the power of his austerities.Brahma is then said to have
fashioned a large number of weapons from Dadhichi's bones, including the Vajra/thunder,
which was fashioned from his spine. The gods are then said to have
defeated the demons using the weapons thus created.
21 comments:
crash or burn??nah...you will build the thunder and hold it in your palms...and when the time comes, strike...with words...as i once wrote...words as swords, words as oxygen cylinders
I can see the poet in his cubicle, and love "I've typed my bones with care". Very interesting footnote, too.
There is sadness here: calculated loss, compounded hate, maps are lost, typing one's own bones. I do hope you are doing okay.
I love the way you have blended myth and the reality of 21st century work environment.
These lines are epigrammatic:
Springs and ladders now can’t be of help
When maps of lands beyond walls are lost
i like acrobatic words misstep leaps
renal test
verification makes it really hard to comment. you'd get more comments if you turned it off. i had to do this several times to get it to work.
i'm sure u'll be much happier with it off...notice, most people have it off
sonnet 24
The way you combine noun, verb, and concept is incredibly clever.
I had to read it a few times before I felt comfortable with this disturbing poem. Your process notes aided understanding considerably, thank you.
I work in one of those cubicles :(
I like the last line...so thought provoking. Thanks for the note too ~
Happy day to you ~
It reads like the narrator's own dreams are lost in the routines of mundane work. The cubicle is portrayed like a hopeless prison and all the work is a representation of what was lost and accumilation of resentment. The narrator puts his head down and works on, I think the end is warning to a future generation, narrator's own children or to the younger ones.
Fascinating foot note. Helps somewhat in relating to the poem. Enjoyed reading.
It must feel like being imprisoned to sit in one of those dreadful small cubicles all day.
I love all of the imagery in this and also the explanation which follows about the myth to explain the use of bones.
Lovely writing.
Love that last line, strong finish.
Weaving together the past and the present in a very cool poem. Some hard hitting lines, most already mentioned by the others, and the ending line....awesome. Woohooo!!!!
Powerful words! I love the connection of the mythical urn to the present :)
I like "interests of compounded hate."
Maybe that's what spurned the Occupy Wall Street movement!
These are my favorite lines:
"cubicle of unyielding walls"
"I’ve typed my bones with care"
Kudos for you to using spreadsheets in a mythological sense. I liked this piece immensely much. I will be thinking about this when I return to work this week. Blasted cubicle walls never hold enough intrigue, until now. Thanks!
These lines are great. Really casting off a wisdom through verse. Love the myth legend in the notes. Great job. thanks
"interests of compounded hate" as noted above is nice. I am so glad you added the footnote as explanation and the idea of words doing battle. Nice. I just hope, one's life doesn't need to be offered in this scenerio - or is that what the cubicle is doing to you?
I really appreciate the explanation, Abin, because I had a hard time following the tale. Then, rereading knowledgeably, I recognized the ultimate in martyrdom. Clever.
http://www.kimnelsonwrites.com/2012/05/08/boldly/
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