Hate ‘I’ !
As the stream hates the drought !

Many times you banished my unending Love.
Got solace among the alcohol of solitude.
Learned to sleep with island pains.

‘I’ am the loser of my Kohinoor heaven,
My muse-full Eve of Eden !

How can ‘I’ ever blame you
When you are my only love-book of poems
Of pleasure and pain,
‘I’ wrote out of your smiles and absences ?

‘I’ wish that someday the night-rain of Red roses,
Or, the dream of stars visiting my dreamless-
Heart, may recite my love to a wrecked sea,

The sea may sip the pith of my languished-
Loneliest hours glued in my holy-ashes’ eyes;
May quench her silver petals
For briny bitter-sweet Love,
Bartering her bluest-tranquility !

Then, ‘I’ may forgive and forget
Your heartbreak, my immovable-despair;
Your rejections, my current-caged-aches

And, ‘I’ may adorn them with pearly-islands,
Smiling-clouds of lilies, emerald-curves of mermaids,
And may be with another damasked rosy-lips,

Because, then only I’ll realize that my vain
And worthless words like these will only grow
Your heartbreak and rejections

Beyond the separating-mountains,
Beyond the fast of the monsoon,
Beyond the fluttering pain of these dividing nights,
And beyond the manufacturing date
Of the darkness !

Forget ‘I’,
As the Love and its language dead God !

Because, as long as you flame and breathe
In the heavens of my heart,
‘I’ can’t think of any other angelic planet
Of impure poetry.

Hate ‘I’ !

Forget not to hate ‘I’ !

Because, ‘I’ dreamed of you
To be my eternal angel in life
To solace the infernal wounds
Of my solar lantern-heart.

And for Eternity and our kids !

Forgive ‘I’ not !

Hate ‘I’ as the stainless stream hates
The prolonged drought !

                                                                                                ~ Sanju Clement

                                                                                                  Kerala, India