The Tavern

The call of the Tavern left me long back, in shame

It had lit in me love, a flame,

And then each day,

It played a trick, it called my name

It lingered, it claimed the Muse, my soul and all, my say

What I could I did, the dried quill resigned

The inkpot left bare long behind

In shadows behind the curtains, blind

The call of the Tavern, where the wine

Poured down parched throats unimpeded left

Verse choked, slurred voices lost in theft

Deep inside, raked by pain as I lay in the cold outside,

The laughter wore a muffled croak

The heart dead, the tears dried,

For the Muse, she hid somewhere, the alcohol

Was saddled deep inside,

And the tavern just an alter, a shrine

To a million words, to the poems left behind…

There are odes I hear to the tavern they call life

It pleads, it gives a joy ride and yet, strife

There is wine- there is sunshine,

An incense permeates the flow of Time

As the Tavern changes its shape and shade

The Woman of Words just stays aloof, I fade

As the sounds of clinking glass

Gurgling flows of mellowing croons

Sung in the moods of indigo blues

Divided in ambivalence, the Muse

Watches perhaps from far away,

As twinkles in starlight astray

The poems mutilated, mindless

I witness the bouquet the Muse had shed

The Tavern still has poets, racing words

Laughter, mistresses and admirers

Critics and critiques, words of fire

And yes, the Muse lurks in hot desire

The old poet banished, famished,

His wine, sobriquets, epithets

Brickbats alike in exile, vanquished,

The Muse looks on heartless

The wine flows yet, hours in the darkness

Cries the poet, poems now a mattress of tears

In a sky, stellar, cosmic, immortal yet unread!

In the Tavern of Eternity, forever a shop

Of dreams, an ethereal bartender of words

Weaves secret tapestries, pours the wine of romance

Who cares? For poets drunken with the golden rye

Fizzes and cocktails of rhyme,

Time stands still, only favors die!

27 Nov 2009