Writerly Meanderings (poem)

There was a time
When words spoke to silence

Intense, desperate, crafted
Reaching out to minds starved of images

They were assembled like Lego pieces
In a million attics of innocent hearts
Cemented by the imperfect glue of personal memory

The writers and readers were intertwined
In a matrix of togetherness
On lazy afternoons
Separated by continents, generations
And sometimes, centuries.

Ideas swam across imagined
oceans.

We tell stories now in gasps
To be read in wisps
In the tired monotony
Of Hyperconnections
Polluted by social niceties
Likes from intimate strangers

Writers do not hold us in their octopus tentacles
Nor caress us
With mysteries and questions.

They have LinkedIn pages
And sundry ways of the Ordinary

We killed them with Fame
And trampled on their glory

They are smug now
Alongside a retinue of metiers
Sporting Santa robes
For promotional publishers

The pen is a toothpaste
The ink cleans your teeth
The back covers promise
The front blurbs recommend

Teen scribes are geniuses
Unblessed by wisdom
Everything is gamed
Everyone has arrived.

In fleeting memories
Of mystical afternoons
The Writer is still an apparition for me
God-like, powerful, enigmatic, unattainable.
    --N.Madhavan, 2016