Chittaranjan Dash, 2 April 2023
I am nobody
My shadow is a nobody’s shadow
Nobody’s shadow lingers
Around other shadows of his kinfolk
An invisible ghetto
Of nobody’s shadows mushrooms
From the colony of nobody’s shadows
A perennial river flows
Bearing tear, blood, sweat
And stillborn carcasses of dreams
To the dark sea of eternity
Bearing footprints of immortal oblivion
On trampled grass,
Ghosts of broken dreams gather
Sniffing furiously
For the scent of nobody’s shadows.