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Writer's pictureKeshav Suryanarayanan

#91 Intertext


I realised recently,

That a lot of what I write is referential.

Calling to other things in ways even I don't see coming.

Sometimes even to things I myself have said.

My own meta verse, I thought.

(Now, was that pun essential?

You tell me, why not.)


Somehow I suspect you already know by now,

But yes, I like puns.

Puns.

Call backs.

References too.

To things others have said really well.

To things I find maybe I already said sometime, word for word.

But what is originality,

If not to go back to the origins.

Draw from the past, but take it forward too.


What can I say that Dylan hasn't yet?

And what can he say that hasn't already been said,

By an Italian poet from the thirteenth century?

Or maybe someone else will.

So what can we say?

With all these words of others that we ate,

All this tasty food for thought.

What matters is what we do with it-

What we add,

How we make,

Something at least good from the already great.

All we can do,

Is stand on the shoulders of these towering few,

And hope to see at least one thing new.


So, I find it funny,

To put in a reference here, a call back there.

If nobody gets it now, that's fine too.

My words will be around,

Just waiting to be found.


Everyone decides where they want to swim,

The surface is fine, it's nice too sometimes.

But if even one person decides to dive a little deeper,

What they get to,

Is what I was getting at.

Which is now something only they and I share

And really, how cool is that?

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