A Conversation ( with the self )

You say:
poetry is a bulwark
where you hide yourself in the lines of your verses
like an injured soldier.

You say:
fear is a disease
a cancer
the death for the lifeless creatures
a bad omen
for the fearless.

I say:
poetry is not a bulwark
for injured souls
where we hide ourselves, and
finds ourselves at ease
but
the playground of our childhood
where we fight, smile and giggle
and where we meet our lost selves.

I say:
love and hate
fear and courage grows together.
It is only
when we cease to dream
the possibility of hope
and live in fear
that poetry
comes with grief
to give a comfort to our dead souls , and a bath
to bury us forever
in the graveyard of fear
with the spades of sarcasm
under the debris of doubt.



Farid Gul, London, May 22, 2010.