Specifics

The other day I drafted a poem
and showed it to a friend.
He said: don’t generalise, be specific.

I started chronicling the specifics:
local bullying, cruel ragging,
purchasable degrees,
greased-palm delivered jobs,
adulterated sustenance
prolonged by spurious aftercare,
listless drone of daily grind,
opulence of the bragging thugs,
acquiescence by the marginalised.

And so on!
They swarm over the page,
leaving no elbow room
for my humble poem.
Yet it refuses to be stifled,
wades through them to the centre-stage,
making a statement of its own,
wreathing a garland of hopes, dreams.
Journey endures, skyline aglow, enchanting.

A.K. Das