To live
one needs
that
vital spark
that Iskra
that makes
us
burst
alive
‘
Love
of
any kind
is that
fey
and
fulsome
light
failing
which
we full
sore
lean
none too
eager
none
too keen
on dun
ephemerals
drink drugs
dark
debauch
that blight
our
boorish
unsanguine
days
O look not
upon
our wayward
ways
*
The hurt
they
give us
their
balms
erase
on wounds
we
sought
to
assuage
and so
we fall
in
mordant
desuetude
unfit to
stay
or
self-efface
garnering
pain
whilst seeking
good
in molten
ice
and ragged
rage
the ink that
will not
cannot
dry
on wastrel
life’s
desultory
page
*
The saddest
words
of tongue
and pen
in expense of
reason
and waste
of rhyme
the saddest
thoughts
we could
ever
own
in wan
cadence
plaintive
moan
“I might have
lived
had I
but
known”
as we think
and think
again
in gutted
grief
and sodden
pain
I might
have
lived
had I
but
known
[© R.Kanth 2025]
Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>