The Street

Walking down the aisle I see yonder

The men who smoke cigars laid down with tattered rags

And I wonder their story beneath those ragged clothes and dirty faces

Have their dreams been tattered or have they tattered their dreams?

Walking down the aisle I walk on the steps of giant men

Men who changed the world, men who changed how we look at the world

And I ponder upon the random and uneventful questions popping by

Have they been destined to achieve or did they achieve their destiny?

Walking down the aisle I see winners

Clean suits and hats bobbing by, nodding away at each other, good ole’ morning

And over the yonder I whisper unto myself

Are their hearts as clean as their suit over the sunshine?

Walking down the aisle I see beggars

Rattling their tipping tin mumbling away well heard jumbles into the rumbling bumble of tumbling traffic

And I sit under the “café” serving ten rupee tea with broken handles

Quizzing the facts and the fictions; have their dreams been snatched away by the karma?

Walking down the aisle I near its junction

As I walk past I gaze unto a person, aghast I ponder

Is he happy? Sad? Or angry? Or maybe a just a bit dreamy?

And he smiles back to me from the mirror asking me

“What are you doing here, in the aisle of broken dreams?”

Minindu Ekanayake

15/08/16