Delusion

                             Delusion

                



It must have been
the same road then,
for it held those familiar
boards and bends...

The hospital signboard
was crooked as always,
The 'o' in it's name
 was missing since our graduation days!
The footpath sheltered the cigarette stubs,
Callously thrown around
by the amateurs to the nicotine buzz..

Gigantic faces, 
awaited at a distance,
Wry and rusty...
They were  faces
with limbs that I 
barely could see...

They mirrored the stern 
glare of the sun.
Although, anchored to
these little limbs
They now seemed to move
or rather, they lumbered,
in the attemps of a run...

An unhurried recognition
now dawned upon me.
These faces I knew 
As they knew me...
But never did they pause
or greet 
Instead they stumbled,but moved
To escape that intense glare from the sun!

And if this ambiguity,
That drapes this poem of mine
Hasn't yet warped your mind,
I'd ask you to wait
And bear with me,
As more have I to write
about the things I did see...

These known faces
begin to melt,
Fragments of the discolored, rusty, gigantic faces...
Slowly faded into a mushy fluid
that made clumps and moulds
They rolled as pebbles and settled in the crevices
of the tarred road!

And me,
Was I even a participant here?
For I felt nothing,
And yet,I moved ahead 
on that turpid road..
Each step of mine, 
placed on those pebbles and clumps of clay,
That now disintegrate
 to merge with the dust 
that flew away...

And now, dubious figures await me
Hollow structures,still unformed
Gaze at me from 
down the road,
Where am I headed, or who are they
Will I now be
A clump of clay?

As I stop writing,
I question myself...
Was this a dream posed as a poem,
Or a poem dressed like a dream?
Maybe neither...
I might have just said goodbyes to old friends,
And seen their hollow remembrances...
In the ones I'm about to meet...