A candle has to burn itself
For fleeting moments in the dark
Behold its flame dance like an elf
Like swan song of a spent skylark!

What legacy have I left behind
Besides my bones beneath two yards
And last poem vain world won’t find
Since I ain’t one of those famed bards!

Only debts and debts from birth to death
Burden the ethos of this man
Who lived and died this shibboleth –
“What’s a man who ever defies his clan”!

Beyond penitence, beyond pretense, enigma of my existence
A soul enduring social strife
In a crime with a silent evidence
Those Empty Eons Of My Life!

© 2023 Vikas Chandra