The Vetala would love to be published |

The Vetala would love to be published

Hardworking I am
but also a ghost.
Best to leave me hanging.

The world won’t do it, of course;
and quite admittedly
I like an audience.

I’ve worn a fresh corpse
in the marusthal.
Yet I yearn for more blood.

All creatives have vices;
do not judge me
by that sole trait.

I can make beauty.
A storyteller am I:
past master

of open-ended tales
with more twists and turns
than a blockbuster.

A story
that shows you nothing
more or less than your soul.

All I ask is:
leave me alone.
I have to dream up tales

for the next pesky king
who wants to bring me
to be beheaded

at the fire that spews boons
where a wily magician
might just end us both

and claim for himself
the unjust rewards
bestowed by fickle gods.

I could simply fly off
from the clutches of the king;
then who’d hear my first draft?

To ease the journey
I begin a tale
that ends with a riddle.

If he answers wrongly
I’ll fly back
to my tree of the dead

to hang like a spider
spinning another yarn
seeing as he will return.

If he gets it right
he’s won me over.
I’ll go with him

to the sacrifice.
If he says nothing
though he knows the answer

I’ll split his head
into a hundred bits.
King, take it or leave it.

Whether you or another
It’s all the same.
You keep coming, I keep

bamboozling
kings keen or dull.
These days, I tire of it.

Let me ask you:
why don’t I get a grant
or at least a literary agent

so I needn’t rescue this body
with a yarn made to test
the mettle of the king?

I mean, talk about
a captive audience:
he abducts me.

Talk of ill-treating authors!
Give a free talk
and no refreshments.

← Suhit Kelkar