Never anthologise poems:
left to themselves in a book
the poem The Cow
will eat the poem The Grass,
the poem The Tiger
will pounce upon
the poem The Cow
The Hunter will kill
The Tiger.

Never read poems:
before you reach
the other shore of language:
poem The Land
will submerge in poem The Sea
poem The Fire
will burn to ashes
The House, Native Land, 
the City.

Never write poems:
the illiterate sounds
strangled by the darkness of writing
will resurrect
the rogue words and the broken images
cut out and buried
will take up arms
the Mahabali46 lines will come back
the question marks
will interrogate the full stops
the exclamation marks
will turn into scarecrows.

Cursed by the unwritten poems
the book-a coffin of alphabets-
will scream.