The Ragpicker

By Anustup Sengupta

There goes the Ragpicker,

“Give me your clothes: shabby and torn,

Mundane, dilapidated and shorn.

All your clutters with faded lustre”.

Tarry! Ye ragpicker,

Take away all those sans grandeur.

Broken toys, letters of blasphemy,

False accolades, there are as many.

No, I don’t want anything in return,

Just relieve me of these auburn.

Put this Stone also in your sack,

But keep that Clock back on the rack.

It, I will try to repair.

If not, there’s no despair.

From Red to Black missing the Blue,

The portrait too has changed its hue.

But O Ragpicker! Where do you shrug

Off all your rugs?

“I’m a Ragpicker, born of shun,

I have an ocean but none to churn.”

By Anustup Sengupta