Poetry 2017 Longlist Debasish Mishra

Who’s Ugly?


(An absurd dialogue-poem, inspired from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot) 

A: It's cosy to sit beneath this mammoth tree.
B: Yeah, I love the silence and solitude - just you and me. 

A: Your face looks strange, where had you been?
B: What rubbish! That's your face which you haven't seen.

A: Your face looks uglier than mine any day.
B: I disagree. Have you got anything else to say?

A: What about the smell of your stinking socks?
B: Signs of a great man, sweating in hills and rocks. 

A: You are unbearable, that's the bottom-line.
B: You are the one with the swagger of a swine. 

A: There's a passerby, he'll surely clear the doubt.
B: Yeah, call him. He'll tell who's ugly. Shout!

A: (Calls the passerby) Keep calm and wait till I ask.
B: Trust me, Oh comrade, that ain't a difficult task.

A: See our faces and answer the query, O friend.
B: Yeah, tell who's ugly between us and the debate will end.
C:(with fury) You both look miserable, an insult to art!
A and B: (hiding faces in their palms) Let us depart.