Rajiv Khandelwal’s most recent poem to appear here was “Destination” (November 2019).

The Poem Unborn
By Rajiv Khandelwal

Every day
Morning is forked out
Reading about
Rape—
Rape of minor by minors
Rape of elderly by elderly
A politician beating someone
Economy going downhill
Sponsored terrorism going uphill
Someone demanding facilitation fee
Someone facing corruption charge

Every day is run-of-the-mill
Same sulking stories
Same political speeches
Same trite expectations
Same lurking obsessions

Served in divergent shades

In this conflict-driven distressing planet
Each exhausted day
Covets the prospector’s pleasure
Of finding an elusive utopia
And penning an all-consuming passionate poem

But each night
The unfinished tired poem

Goes to bed
With the pen

To wake up once again
To the same mundane routine