Dubliners, a leitmotif

                    I

It would have been perhaps
that part of a dusk
taken like a leaf out
from that vivid 'Dubliners',

                    II

there were no memoirs Irish
no forms of imperial gossip,
eastern guards they were not there,

                    III

only it seemed as it were
to say something
for some people to hear,
and for someone to let out
all that were kept like doubts,

                    IV

a lot can happen over talks,
wars, and our pieces too
broken and missed up cues,
bread, spinach green,
cold coffee , strawberry cream,

                         V

everything just over talks,
talks peppered with mustard sauce,
and forks resting beside knives,
cutlery exotic, plastic swipes,

                          VI

and then posters hanging on the wall
Stephen there about to weep for a girl,
a little flower claiming possibility
in crystal vase, stored for antiquity,

                          VII

have they all become metropolitan?
smart, clicking heels, stamping boots,
crumpled scrolls of unspoken truth,

                          VIII
Stephen remembered the poem recited
by his uncle in a drunken state,
to his aunt about something patriotic,
love for the land, in a tone charismatic,

                    
                            IX

the wheels moved at slumbering pace
passing posts making misty trace
on window firmly shuttered down,
it was a faraway town,

                             X

the sound of florins on the floor
making jingling noise broke the stupor,
'Dubliners' there on the table kept,
turned into a motif leit.

('Dubliners' is a collection of short stories by James Joyce, )