Random Poetry for Random Times

Isn't it funny
that I'm to be
the dismal one
who is no fun?

That I'm the one
who should always gun
for the world to be small,
and full of brawl?

That resources are short?
That we better abort
that dreamy plan
to lift up woman and man?

But my dear old mate,
My only fate's
to find lines and curls
in our physical worlds

But within those bounds,
I will never propound
that we have limits and ends
to our creative selves

And yet, isn't it funny?
That in our quest for money,
or fame, or peace, or a spoonful of honey,
everyone else is eager to state
that the world of ideas has real estate
subject to shortages, trade-offs, and prices,
and that ideas can't co-exist, no compromises?

I am to be the dismal one, they say,
but I can't think of more depressing a way
than to suggest that ideas
be chained and bound
with the same dream-stuff
from which they are found.

Amogh Arakali,
Bengaluru,
August 2022