For Bruce Springsteen
for bruce springsteen...
it was a rain-swept monsoon day
way back then, so many moons away
when i felt the music strumming in my veins
setting me free like a runaway horse without any reins
you sang of simple truths,
your verse spoke to people just like me
in my lonely, wasted, and desolately quiet night
as you screamed out tragic human wrongs, and of everyone's plight
'bobby jean' spoke to me
of that girl down the street
glimpses of whom, we as innocents would furtively meet
and 'the river' that flowed through my ever-barren heart
led me down further roads of thunder
when slowly i finally learnt that the hardest part was fighting on
and never to surrender
to the hard-luck dreams that were born to run
while i danced in the dark
with memories vivid and stark
even as i whined like that dog who for forever lost his howling bark
and then a 'human touch' came along
and 'better days' seemed real, not just words in a song
and still you sang and swayed and spoke straight into my unseeing eyes
as gardens of secrets were opened, and as your fist punched the skies
in an anger that i too felt and in whose cauldron i too burned
as we saw murder get incorporated, while on its wobbly axis, our fragile world apathetically turned
and then suddenly i was told that i was all grown up
working on a highway of scattered ideals
and absolving myself by sprinkling some coins in a waiting cup
well, after all these years of walking along so many a thorny road
with an armour of your verse covering me, even as i hear them taunt me and even as they continue to goad
but now i can feel myself fading away, into the bleakness of this coming night
just like the ghost of that old tom joad...
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