In upper part of my body
a cognitive bell rings
from a dial-up connection of live wires,
The modem is working just
to repeatedly provide the facsimile of
barren and bald paths
Inner lumbering of daily freight
coiling, clutching upward,
There is no vivacity
The vital force has parasited,
How I inhale life?
My days and nights are bolted
inside a brain cell,
My voice has held back,
It lays a plan to brawl my soul,
Residing in my own skull
dictates notes imitating my tone
I couldn’t disintegrate my recall
As my sullen shadow has left me
there remains Just I, me and myself
Why is my brain a black hole?
Could it not be a universe
out of a constellation of migraine, tablets
syringe, backache and insomnia?
Dream has become a dead pattern
as worn out as fossilized glow,
Everything has become identical
except the weight of consequence
that has variations of endurance
As I go through perdition
my imbalance will be rectified,
When I look in the mirror
an x-ray image shows a doomed figure,
So hang my art on the wall
as after allotted time my gallery will end
——
Sandeep Kumar Mishra is an outsider artist, poet and lecturer in English Literature. He runs Kishlaya Outsider Art Academy. He has edited a collection of poems by various poets – Pearls (2002) and written a professional guide book – How to Be (2016) and a collection of poems and art – Feel My Heart (2016).