COURTESY

A heart that smiles with a golden shine

Receives the gift of everlasting bonds

That last through thick and thin times

And with time grows more strong 

A sweet 'hello' or a cordial 'goodbye'

Has so much strength to give

This heritage of good courtesy 

Refreshes even the primitive 

They that greet all men as friends

Never encounter sorrow alone

They that shares their joy in abundance

Find in every heart a home

There's little to do in being kind

A thoughtful gesture, a polite discourse 

Courtesy is the mediation of mind

That can't be bought, neither be forced

-Karan Ghosh

DEAR DOG

Dear dog of unknown breed
How familiar is your greed
I wonder easing your summer thirst
When did you feel hungry first

And when you did what did you eat
Surely not any milk or meat
No place for luxury on the street
Here dog eats dog & catcalls greet

Little thing, I pray show me your scars
Or mud stains from speeding cars
Or pelting wounds from angry kids
Who hurt you as their fathers did

Show me love that's free of danger
That which you've offered strangers
Your wagging tail with no demands
Beside a soft petting of hands

You've taken what you have found
No losses could shake your ground
God's own pet in a godforsaken time
A protagonist in my blessed rhymes

If we meet beyond this world again
Promise me you'll teach me then
The art of love and letting go
And only this and nothing more

-K.G.

MAMA INDIA

There is something she had to say
Continuing what she said that day
But our memory fails to recall a face
And so we begin to save her grace

This memory game that’s on the go
Never finds a stop, never likes the slow
Thus it fades from all such minds
That are convoluted across the line

We only liked the good she found
The other things never came around
So she searched again with innocent eyes
Not distinguishing between wrong and right

She seeks, seeks what attracts the mind
Whether adult, infant, or infinite
And when she finds no good anymore
We quench her ‘thirst to explore’

And wrap her in a tricoloured divide
Where we can home, where we can hide
But this mother of ours was never a bride
Or a daughter, or sister, or a friend, or anything else..

-K.G.

CITY

I have visited a strange city
With buildings that reflect sunshine
That even on stern October days
Dazzle the eyes of passersby

Still passing at the stop
This city knows no ease
A place for the sturdy mind
To suffer the fitness disease

So able in their swanky cars
So feeble on their lonely feet
They reclaim yesterday's victories
Standing tall in the face of defeat

From here, innocence is a dream
Stairways emerging from stairways
No more friends, neither enemies
Every morning some earth breaks

And if you look close enough
You could find yourself too
As a reflection on windowpanes
A special place just for you

-K.G.

HERE

Here, now, presently
I want you to myself
And desire that you invest
Your bit of everything
For no one holds the key
To the various mysteries
Of the next moment

Because in the upcoming
I could be future
And you could be past
Our dream of convergence
Could be just dream, alas
Our inhibitions aligned
Sleeping in a future past

We could wake up one day
Next to peaceful dreamers
Or petrify our nightmares
By those who never sleep
Or may be this coffee is
The sweetest memory
Just in our twisted heads
Another taste that's on repeat

-K.G.

20 LINES

Look, we are defeated again
We that were anarchy's children
Stand hand-tied before our times
Mastering new tunes in old rhymes

We escaped the mirrors in pain
A slice of reflection still remains
Yours in mine, mine in yours
All the afters of our before

So fond of the night, we stayed
Awake until it was too late
And when the Sun greeted the sky
Warm blankets nurtured our lies

When sleep departed we found
Just that listless, mundane sound
That crawls between two friends
And awkwardly finds an end

Now we must rest, I suppose
Our paradise has found a close
If heaven is full, give me hell
I just hope that you're doing well

-K.G.

DECEMBER FRIENDS

Let me make you a poem
So if we may part, I’ll remember
You, like I have known you
Since that long lost December

As I am so good at forgetting,
I’ll remember you as a few lines
Some ink upon an old page,
A collective of some rhymes

Some things about your anger
A few occasions of laughter
Youthful plans that failed too soon
Some wonderful ever-afters

I will pause you wherever I like
And several times begin you again
Addressing matters that affect us
I’ll remind myself why we’re friends

-Karan Ghosh

FOR ABSENT FRIENDS

Friendship is a funny thing
And funnier than fun indeed
Found in uncanny places
Absent where there be a need

A fish hence found a friend
In a bird with blackened feathers
And found itself engaged
Through the passage of several weathers

Two comrades divided by a line
Where the sea meets the sky
Two worlds that only greet
But never form an ally

Bewitched by flapping freedom
The fish decides to try
The taste of carbon laced oxygen
So she leaps onto the other side

But alas, she fell back into water
Where life had clutched her tight
Falling short of the aerodynamics
That the world across required

Her flight had failed but she did not
Friendships grow without greed
Two worlds met, two lives touched
And that is all a friendship needs

-K.G.

DAY FOUR

Three days down a new subject

I realise that I do not get

Any part of what’s on the board

Yet still I hope, there must be more

More knowledge in the college choir

Where no homework they require

But Math calls for homework I’m sure 

My notebook’s empty, this is day four

Five days of buffet now remain 

On the sixth, students puke with pens

I’m still not hungry, have never been

Especially around examinations

I do have answers but no details

How do parents feel when children fail

Everyone knows but some can ignore

Ten chapters undone, this is day four

Seven thousand in cash a month

For this rented flat after the hunt

How about hunger, what about greed

There’s more money that you need

To survive until another pay cheque

And fix damages of this monthly wreck

So I trade sleep for extra chores 

All my dreams await, this is day four

For two meals a day my belly calls 

I guess this is where positivity falls
So I keep my head high and forget
All the success that I have met
And melt the walls of ego and pride
There's nowhere to go, nothing to hide
Just another ship far from the shore
I'll get there soon, it's just day four

Blockchain Technology: Yet Another STAR TREK Rip Off

Although comments have already been made on how Blockchain technology could have been inspired from Science fictions of the past, we bring to you a collective of serious observations that will make you reconsider the matter. We’ll need all the Star Trek fans to raise their hand now! Don’t sweat if you’re not into the whole Sci-fi series, we’ll break it down for you.

Remember the Borg civilisation in the Star Trek series? Of course you do, if you have followed the series. But in case the Borg reference is French and Greek to you, the Borg civilisation is a fictional alien race that function as a collection of drones, linked as a collective hive mind. They came to life by the amalgamation of knowledge and technology, that they attained from all the species which they encountered on their interstellar journey. Borgs make all their decisions unanimously and aim for sever precision and perfection. This civilisation has featured as a main threat in several Star Trek episodes and movies, owing to their ingenious background story.

How can Blockchain be considered the think-tank of The Borgs? We picked out some stark possibilities that make the Borgs seem to be the originators of the Blockchain. Here are some points that might make you take our observations more seriously:

• The Hive Mind Concept

The Borgs function as a collective, linked to a hive mind. Blockchain is a decentralised ledger that is developed using smart contracts, building a definite network. This network is made up of fragments of codes that require simultaneous execution across all nodes to derive the same outcome. Basically, it cannot function without a unison in decision. The one difference between Borgs and Blockchain tech is that the Borgs had a certain consciousness of their own due to the assimilation of several species which had a conscious mind. However, with the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence, we don’t see how that is too farfetched. Brace yourself!

• The Genesis Of Borgs

As the story goes, the Borgs established their race by combining borrowed technology and knowledge from various species. Similarly, the blockchain is basically a combination of a lot of preexisting technologies like:

1. Distributed Knowledge 

2. Consensus Algorithm

3. Cryptography

4. Databases

So people may feel that the Blockchain is a lot more than just this, and is undergoing extensive research individually. But think again, would blockchain exist if these aforementioned technologies were not brought together.

• The Disruptive Nature

Due to their obsession with perfection and unison, the Borgs have been highlighted as the main threat on many Star Trek storylines. Much the same way, decentralisation and disruptive tendencies of the Blockchain technology have also been perceived as a threat by several governments across the globe. The fear here is that the technology might reform and overhauls how governments, businesses and financial institutions have been functioning so far. Despite the resistance, an array of blockchain developers and organisations are pushing limits even as we live and breathe.

• The Inevitability Factor

Remember that creepy tagline that symbolises the Borgs; ‘Resistance is futile’? For the less informed, this is the one claim which the Borg civilisation takes pride in. Meaning that it is inevitable and is all-encompassing. Blockchain works under a similar hypothesis. Although cryptocurrency was its first feat, but gradually blockchain technology has been able to integrate itself in several innovative use cases that make it seem like an ultimate solution. So if you thought that blockchain technology is a soda-water-fizz affair, we wish that you live long and prosper, because blockchain ain’t going anywhere.

ALL THE BEST

I see with my two stupid eyes
How you like to look into mine
And I know you're seeing desires
The mountains we couldn't climb

Dried leaves still rustling on the roads
In the wake of a new daylight
Where did we find darkness?
When did we lose track of the night?

Come here, where I lay silent
Conversations need little reprise
We're foolish people together
Gliding between birth and demise

Let me be that simple sailor
Who guides your ship back home
Sailing you back from seas afar
To then leave you alone

Why half the courtesy, you ask?
Because I trust you with the rest
I'm slowing down, this is your stop
So here's wishing you all the best

-K.G.

SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS

I greet the lovely weekends

So that they treat you with care

Since you haven’t shared much space

With empty Saturdays and Sundays

I wish you all the happiness

That a lonely home could provide

Festooned with a garland of nothingness

That even sleep cannot suffice

My heart is in the right place

And my intention is to soothe

I have better known these days 

Which you are about to

Darling, I too have missed the buzz

Of the regular nine to five

And have missed the lunchtime grub

That munching of a hundred lives

The past five days have been a run

That tested you more than required

Though now that peace prevails again

Don’t you suddenly feel bored and tired

But sadness is different from bored

That loneliness just amplifies

So here I am, to pamper you 

In this embrace that you recognise

-K.G.

I AM HENCE BUT WE

I am;
All that I read
All that I listen to
All that is available
To my humble view.

Hence;
I am the sense
That all these things
Cause delicately in me
To evoke fantasies

But;
It is remarkable
How so much remains
Encrypted fables
Only if we sustain

We;
We are much more
Inside our composite shells
Where nothing really
Is going to hell

-K.G.

HUNTING TOOLS

All that I live
A moment, a feeling
A twitch, a kiss
Lives and dies in time
While I go on ringing
Like a real-time alarm

Tired of happiness
Sick of sorrow
I'm only looking for
Some time alone
If there is a tomorrow

Tomorrow I'd kill again
To be a killer like yesterday
A different weather forecast
Just another calendar date
Still killing
Now with new hunting tools

-K.G.

DREAM DOG

Dear world, I give you my dream
Like just another human being
A few catchy songs to sing
Some over whelmed rememberings

Every morning's break of day
Every night's descending
A shade from the palette in the sky
A word to denote all my feelings

Encounter has brought happiness
My company has become a thing
But the sun is moving bit by bit
Only to eyes that are observing

So much more than what is at sight
This mind must be a foolish dream
Placed in the sleepy heads of those
Who are just seeing and believing

-K.G.

MONEY TALKS

I have been flung
Into many a pockets before
And I shall travel 
Into a lot many more

I started out, shining
Straight out of the dream machine
Lost my light in time
And value to people I haven't seen

I'm a coveted fetish
To those who are lower still,
While I'm nothing more
Than kindness for restaurant bills

There are more sides
Between my ancient head and tail
Where desire sits naked
To watch reason and logic fail

I will not be enough
You will need many others like me
So when the going gets tough
Come to me for company

-K.G.

TOXIC

Neither news nor memory
Of my friend do I receive
However so, there must be more
And so I wait patiently

Waiting for time to bring
Or for this mind to sing
The sweet hymns of sacred love
Conceived of former happenings

I wonder what happens now
To all our solemn vows
An archive of promises, perhaps
Too toxic for our prides to allow

Dictators caught in a democracy
We bent our rules too many times
For given too much perfection
This love shall bitterly die

-K.G.

PANIC ATTACK

Roll me on your sleeves and walk
I only wish to be your pride
Hold me when we're driving home
It's gonna be a bumpy ride

More madness awaits you in me
Than in literature and art
My drama to keep you company
My romance to soothe your heart

Spell it right, pronounce it wrong
Make me a word you can say
I've already heard too many songs
Haven't heard you call me 'baby'

Broken strings make no sound
But untuned guitars do have tongues
I'm not a singer but I can scream
At the top of my sullen lungs

Verse me on just a torn page
I've dropped hopes of paperback
Preserved history I wish not to be
I'm a poem composed in panic attack

-K.G.
2/6/18

FLOWER SONG

The sun shone behind a cloud
Six hundred days of summer gone
A dainty grey on monsoon's shore
A chunk of quiet before the storm

A blade of grass cut my soul
I have ever since, my fears lost
While summer has waited endlessly
To heal kisses of the nightly frost

This heartbreak beats the thunder
We ruptured an innocence too soon
I've seen the rain falling upon
Blurry shadows of the winter moon

Can you seep into barren cracks
Where nothing has grown for long
To water me with soft lullabies
I am the grave of a flower's song

-K.G.

CHEF

We marched towards an infinity
And he joined us on the ride
A curiosity on our taste buds
An aroma of things that we fantasised

We never stopped serving tunes
Since fortunately he relished them too
And all colours we split together
The purple and pink of the blues

We hiked the hills of possibilities
And pitched a tent on the peak
Our minds stronger than strength
Our bodies, civilised and weak

Hungry & jilted, I had little choice
With good looking food at my sight
I gobbled & savoured what I found
And oh I tell you, what a delight!

Before the morning broke into light
I remember the taste of a spark
Spice and salt and sweet combined
A feast prepared by chef Chirag

For my friend, Chirag Kanabur
-K.G.

SEX DOLL

Blow yourself a pretty sex doll
And dive into its customised holes
Until you find a human being
To volunteer for the simple role

Fill her up, all nice and tight
Adequate curves in every place
Grab it good within your lust
Turn off the lights, ignore the face

Make no love and say nothing
That happens when humans unite
Go to sleep with no dreams
Fall beside your air-filled pride

Morning comes as an infant's wail
That wasn't born and never died
A stain on last night's bedsheet
That your darkness could not hide

-K.G.

SHINING

Step by step with sweaty palms
Minding shards of broken dreams
Strong and weak in equal parts
I cannot explain quite what I mean

A time there is for flowers to bloom
There is but no season for decay
Let time be our keeper then
While we're corroding day by day

Our first kiss, an autograph
The second one I remember not
You'll turn away and fleet again
Leaving me a bundle thoughts

Outside of us the world awaits
A universe at play on the inside
You and I, we're stars my dear
Shining as we live, twinkling as we die

-K.G.

ANOTHER MAN'S HOME

They took down the house brick by brick
As I watched sweaty men at work
Striking damp walls with shovel and sticks 
This house reaching ruins with every jerk

The scent of old occupants probably remained
Mingled with the odour of wreckage and dirt
How long it took to build this home
How soon it'll be just dust on earth

Sunlight seeps through cracked windowpanes
And life creeps out of marble floors
Dandelions that grow for no one else
But for the wails of creaking doors

You will be gone sooner, sweet home
To be replaced by an architect's new plan
Painted in red or white, who knows
A house belonging to another man

-K.G.

THEREFORE

Sharpen me a pencil that can write
About the mind that is
Ever fluctuating between two directions
Both good and bad

Give me a history to write
In a tongue less expressive
A spectacle to watch out for
More than what meets the eye

Bless my sight with a glance
More night remains in the sky
Hardly does the scent retrieve
Before the mind a resident finds

Toast me a sandwich of memories
With extra peanut butter on
Take me back to school, where I met you
Therefore and thereupon

-K.G.

FOR ME

I know not what it is,
An odour, a smell, a perfume
So I'm calling it a habit
That I'm left with in my room

Because I like how it feels
When we conceive touch
So much felt in so little
Sometimes a little too much

This mind hasn't felt though
That feeling any more
The stains on stale bedsheets
Still haunt me where I go

Blank pages cause me guilt
I've got no stories to tell
My ink now dries in the pot
But I am still doing well

I hardly tidy my home
There is no dirt to clean
Cause who knows where you are
What places you have been

This poem is growing longer
Unlike how I let it be
May be it's just attention
From you that I want for me

-K.G.

FEARLESS & NOT AFRAID

Sometimes, every written piece of text that begins with a ‘sometimes’ is not meant to catch your attention. It could just be the rant of a helpless mind, because there is simply no other means to make oneself feel better than to pen it down. Yes, we are all very wise and we have had tons of experience despite the number of candles on our birthday cakes. It’s still hard to explain to those who have become more wise than us that their experiences cannot be any more important than ours, only because they have more number of yesterdays to recall than we do. This is not a ‘hate rant’ against experience, I’d rather be more honest by calling this a rebellion for acknowledgement.

While generations and the gap between them- collide and corrode, much like the tectonic plates beneath earth’s surface, we can only hope that all the disapproval and denial for newer ways of doing things is coming from a place of care and concern. That all the differences in opinions exist because the preceding generation cannot stand to see its successors make the same mistake that they have already made. Even if all this makes no sense to you, I can assure most of you that it’s going to stay this way forever. We, as parents or uncles and aunts, or simply as old seniors will function the same way like we have known our seniors and elders. Expressing in ways that are more modern today, and will indefinitely become more traditional or conservative by the time our hair greys.

Because that irritable relative who you can’t relate with was 14 someday, and dreamt just like you and me to be infinite and limitless, probably in a different way. Hence, this could be a good way to accept the only truth, the truth of change, which we are a part of and are contributing continually towards. Because the glass is better half full than half empty, right?

If I don’t want to do something that I do not like, and want to pursue my passionate dream instead, I also cannot complain about being put through uncomfortable situations. I can totally feel free to be an irresponsible vagabond, but then I cannot hope to receive help from friends and family because I can’t afford taking care of myself. I deserve to be inspired by the silence of desolate mountains and wake up to floods of sunlight where skies meet the sea, but not without missing how wonderful the Mushroom Risotto at Delhi’s Big Chill is, so that I can value it when I’m here, and fondly remember this when I’m there.

I want sacrifice, forgiveness and maturity to find me when they do. Because I sure do know them well, as I have been sacrificed, forgiven and exposed to maturity on several occasions. But may be my time hasn’t come yet. And when it does, I want to be found by them because they have been looking for me. For now, I want to chase butterflies in the sunshine forest of her beautiful, long hair. I want to spend weekdays writing tremendously beautiful articles that people wouldn’t even know about, and travel in timely metros by the weekend to be around her on Sundays. It’s truly not too much to ask for. May be it is. I’ll never know, I guess.

All I can surely say is that- I have all the right to feel fearless, but only with the courage to not be afraid.

-ME
August 13, 2018

CIVILISED MINDS

I’ve been marooned on the screen

Where life helplessly logs in

Searching of a wreck-loose identity

Tagged to places where I’ve never been

This forgetful mind only creates

In the fear of remembering too much

And follows the conventional way

Even forgetting to mind as such

Like smoking without the will too die

Like leaving without a last goodbye

Like wearing clothes inside out

Like answering in puzzled rhymes 

Painted between smoky streetlights

Where horny vehicles move languidly

Where traffic lights inspect patience 

And where routine becomes a dream 

While schools and colleges try

To educate people and to divide

The streets test aged lessons

Revealing mentalities of civilised minds

-K.G.

BOUGAINVILLEA

Life fleets by
Slowly and morose
And a little incomplete
Without tracing
The secretive lanes
Of Ganesh Ganj.
I wait like a pained patient,
At the scene
Of some tragic accident,
Who must bear the pain
For another span
Until the remedy is met
By the capable hand.

Some separation
I must admit,
I do feel when there is
No scope for a visit.
Then, I feel the pain
And recall the blank space of
Where there's silence today.
Where pools of Bougainvillea await,
To unite with
The scent of Marijuana,
And commentaries of carrom-
And tartaric acid of grapes-
At the room on the roof.
In our shrine of slumber;
My beloved Ganesh Ganj.

ROOM FOR TWO

I don't want to ring you, on silent
I don't want to drop texts to you
Meeting you and switching off
Sounds like the better thing to do

May be I've lost my vinyl sheath
And have outlived my fancy gloss
We could still take a walk sometime
By the skyscrapers, biting candyfloss

Sometime, when I could find time
Across the networks and the Wi-Fi's
For you to scatter-search and find
What's beyond heavy metal and Sci-fi

In me there is more than you know
A well furnished nook remains for you
With no crazy posters or bookshelves
Just some fire and room for two

HEAVIER THE BAG, SWEETER THE TREAT

All at once, in a festive market
I met the good boy my mother raised,
At the annual ceremony of Holi shopping,
Keeping tracks of our purchase.

I, the treasurer, 
At the helm of the shopper;
Mum, the inspector,
The expert bulldozer.

Lured into the chore, I knew
Crowded markets can be a rue.
Yet each year I would walk through 
And gladly so, my bit to do.

And every year at the end of our trip
My mother, her age-old promise keeps,
“The heavier the bag, the sweeter the treat
At the time of our homewards retreat”.

(To my mother, this Holi)
March 13, 17'

VINES

Rising from risen trees
Winding, bending silently.
Among the myriad; solitary,
Thriving on ephemeral belief.

Vines that grow awkwardly,
In orchards, gardens and cities.
One's that never set you free,
One's that do not find relief.

Vines around the telephone wire
Vines also, that fade is fire.
Vines which trees don't require,
Like vague extensions of a liar.

Where leaves glow; brilliant green,
The vines mostly go unseen.
Where branches droop of festivity,
Vines, eclipsed by seasonal treats.

Neither dewbeds of prosperous trees,
Nor dingy walls of clustered dreams.
But, where flowers bloom, wild and free,
You will find a vine like me.

TOAST

I toasted myself with sound sleep
All night in simmering dreams
On Sunday morning, I stood in kitchen
Making breakfast, toasting bread

The bread lay browning on a pan
Heating towards a crunchy maturity
Like I lay last night in bed
Dreaming without responsibility

Now I'll prepare a suitable filling
To paste between two pieces of bread
And make a sandwich to start my day
But alas, by now my hunger's dead

No different– this sandwich life
Half-eaten, refrigerated and stale
Stored, saved for later consumption
But never microwaved again 

The last stop is a pile of dump
Where half eaten food becomes trash
Where former efforts become waste
Where lies a guilt that I can't face

FIRST EXIT

No amount of words can undo
Or stand along the way
Of this seemingly endless affair
That you and I
Are foster parenting now.
Yes, foster and not real I say
Because the two people
Between whom this affair
Stirred first- are long gone.
Leaving behind just two-
More grown bodies
That matured gradually along
The thumping cadences of time
And became just a bigger size.

The woman involved, looks just
Like you, but from a former day
Perhaps a little more happy,
And more prone to belief.
And the man,
This stupid, simple man whom I
Will envy for a lifetime,
Glorifying his life and times
At bored, sullen gatherings now.

There, under either of these roofs
We will meet again
With our households by our sides
Beside a masqueraded pain.
We could meet from a distance,
If that is what you'd like
Exchange pleasantries and then divide
To secure a sad little corner,
Berating the other person's absence
And watching which ever one
Of us, has the first exit. 

TOO SOUR

Speak to me of coy classrooms
Where memory fails to recall,
Or remember an awkward incident 
That did no good at all

Before life and death converge
Into the steady horizon afar
Tell me of a joy you know
That too soon went too sour 

There's a language in the wail
Of every infant's song
An appeasement in the tears
Of every human born 

Children past childhood, behold
Look closer at life's mirror streets
Where several reflections wander
Searching for experiences to meet

Let's meet them sometime at ease
And be an experience, good or bad
Lonely is just a state of mind,
A phase that we've all shared

NEVER BEEN

Stand not by my grave to weep
I'm not there; have never been
For my dying days, don't save dismay 
A bit of death is crouching each day

Spend a share of your time with me
For that is all that I will ever need
Let our plans be not all we make
Plainly in sync with the worldly parade

To give, I have this day for you
Tomorrow we'll be what we didn't know
And even though there's a silver cloud
But skies look better thundering aloud

Hence, as honestly as men can be
I pray to you most solemnly
Stand not by my grave to weep
I'm not there; have never been

SIMPLIFY

If I said your name
And meant another face
Would you still look back
Hoping for a mistake

Or would you bury the hope
On the spot, with your pride
And wait till you sob alone 
Thinking of me at night

Remembrance is a memory due
That broken hearts must owe
Grey and black on outer walls
Unfettered down below

So when a family you begin
With a man and an offspring
Would your boy share my name
And would you let him sing?

HOLD ON

What if I were the man
And you were the wife
What if we found it all
In our little theory of life

Would you still look
As clueless as you do
When I'm ranting through? 

What if you had one day
For our dreams to come true
Will you then try to live
Like you never wanted me to

Would you still take
Each moment as it came,
Bend the rules of your dainty brain?

What if all I had was a guitar,
Two white shirts and a faded jeans
Will you figure out my gibberish
To really know what I mean

Would you still want
To listen to my songs,
The antiques to which I hold on?