"Except the weight of consequence / That has variations of endurance"
In the upper part of my body
A cognitive bell rings
From a dial-up connection of live wires
The modem is working just
To repeatedly provide the facsimile of
Barren and bald paths
Inner lumbering of daily freight
Coiling, clutching upward
There is no vivacity
The vital force has parasited
How do I inhale life?
My days and nights are bolted
Inside a brain cell
My voice has held back
It lays a plan to brawl my soul
Residing in my own skull
Dictates notes imitating my tone
I couldn’t disintegrate my recall
As my sullen shadow has left me
There remains Just I, me and myself
Why is my brain a black hole?
Could it not be a universe
Out of a constellation of migraine, tablets
Syringe, backache and insomnia?
Dream has become a dead pattern
As worn out as fossilized glow
Everything has become identical
Except the weight of consequence
That has variations of endurance
As I go through perdition
My imbalance will be rectified
Hang my remaining art on the wall
As after allotted time my gallery will end.
Sandeep Kumar Mishra is an outsider artist, poet and lecturer in English literature. He runs Kishlaya Outsider Art Academy. He has edited a collection of poems by various poets, Pearls, (2002) and written a professional guide book, How to Become a Teacher in Australia and New Zealand, (2016) and a collection of poems and art, Feel My Heart (2016). His work has been widely published.