On Nights
When a Loud whistle
Pierces the Heart
Of a swirling fog,
And Startling the
Grey-black cat
Sleeping in the crevices
Of the red-bricked
Dusty Ruins,
And Then
Echoing strongly
In the deserted courtyard
Of a Corner
Yellow-painted modest home
Where lives A student
With a certain Mr. TS Eliot
Stern,
The piercing whistle
Routinely signals
The arrival / departure
Of a long train
Simultaneously---
Depositing passengers exhausted
And ferrying fresh ones
To gleaming metros distant;
In the dead of the wintry night
That stands helpless
And shivering
Like the poor destitute
Sprawled in a drunken stupor
On the right-hand edge
Of the single platform
Near a bright fire
Burning in the gloom,
The loneliness of
Being stuck in a little static town
Is harshly confirmed
For the PG reader
Of the modernist / innovative / cerebral
Creator of the inner / outer
Waste lands.
