“through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us. . ."

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Endgame


Pawns become queens;
Queens run all over the board
Bishops slash
Knights kick
Rooks ram …
What do I, the king do,
Helpless, bound,
At the mercy of the rest?

Alone in the crumbling castle,
I rue…
I never wanted to be the king…

*********** Balachandran, Trivandrum,23-12-2008

6 comments:

  1. Superb again. Been reading Basho's travel sketches the other day. In those days, they used to sit in a group under the moon and write haikus after haikus on one thing or the other, one complementing the other. One man starts; the others, one after the other, take the procession along surprising one another. Great work.

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  2. @venu
    Thanks, Venu, again. It reminds me of the sparklers (kambi thiri) that we light one after the other, from the burning end of the last... till the last one dies out... and then we search among the litter on the ground, hoping for one that has some sparkle left... we blow air, blow, blow, blow...

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  3. And suddenly from the litter a left-out from the malappadakkam goes 'boom'

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  4. leaving you temporarily deaf, blind and insane!!!! :D

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