“What type of poem am I?”
I am as formless as the clouds,
and as elegiac as the silence,
in the itinerary of the noise.
I am not a classic
written by the author God.
The rhythms of my verses are supplied
by the parable of their tears.
I am not in me,
though I abide within myself.
I am but a colour,
whose colours have worn away.
Maybe I was written as
an ethical effect of modern art.
Or maybe I was not written
but just replicated from the lives of others.
I wish I could read the critics’ minds.
Is it true that a poem cannot read anyone?
I loathe the way they recite me,
pretending to understand me.
Maybe I am
the monologue of my rhymes.
Or maybe I am
the narrative of my own life.
However much they hate me,
I am that poetry they can’t write.
I am the phantom of the world
crawling, with a rose in the hand
in the boulevard of the thorns.
However much they praise me,
I am only a drop of verse
drawn up by time
to become the formless clouds
in the wilderness of the literary sky.
O Poet! O my maker!
What type of poem am I?
O strangers! O my readers!
What sort of poem am I?
I wish I could read myself
and discern my spirit.
Is it true that a poem
cannot read a poem?
“Am I a poem?”
or am I just a rhymed hoax?
This cyclic curiosity goes on eternally.
I am lost in a synthesis between
the dualism of my readers
and the monism of my maker.
No one knows what it is like to be a poem.
No one knows how vague its core is.
There is nothing as genuine as me.
There is nothing as deceptive as me.
Bhuwan Thapaliya was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and is one of the most widely read Nepali poets writing in English today. Thapaliya, who works as an economist, is the author of four poetry collections. His books include the recently released Safa Tempo: Poems New and Selected (Nirala Publication, New Delhi,http://niralapublications.com/new-booksarrivals/ ) and Our Nepal, Our Pride (Cyberwit.net) narrative verses of love, peace, and human understanding.
(http://www.amazon.com/Our-Nepal-Pride-Bhuwan-Thapaliya/dp/8182531152) .
Poetry by Thapaliya has been included in The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry and Tonight: An Anthology of World Love poetry (http://www.skylinepublications.com/TONIGHTWorldLovePoetry/TONIGHTWorldLovePoetry.htm) as well as in literary journals such as Urhalpool, MahMag, Kritya, FOLLY, The Vallance Review, Nuvein Magazine, Foundling Review, Poetry Life and Times, Poets Against the War, Voices in Wartime, Taj Mahal Review, Strong Verse, poetseers.org, theasiamag.com, asianamericanpoetry.com, and more. Thapaliya has read his poetry and attended seminars in venues around the world, including South Korea, the United States, Thailand, Cambodia, and Nepal.
