Dear Reader, <br /> <br />A poem at the centre of the collection, <br />Is missing, as you can gather. <br />To speak truly, its absence, equally <br />Baffles me. Did I lose it to computer virus <br />Or did the censor excise it; <br />Or were there only twenty-nine in all, <br />Making this the unwritten poem? <br />Or does this represent the overwhelmingly absent presence, <br />Suggesting, like nirvana or the impossible <br />Revolution, something that we strive towards, <br />But never attain-I mean, Love? <br />Thus it becomes all that I was unable to say, <br />The sunya in the heart of purna, <br />The cavity in the middle of the decentred <br />Text; in a word, the death of the self, <br />(Or instead of the missing poem, these sixteen lines.)<br /><br />Makarand Paranjape<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-lieu-of-the-missing-poem/
