Dream Right Up To The End

Sitharaam Jayakumar

I was a small child of eight,

and I was fascinated by engine drivers,

I dreamed of being one when I grew up,

driving the engine billowing black smoke,

chugging along and pulling the bogeys.

Five years later I was a young lad of thirteen,

this time I was in awe of airplanes flying high,

I dreamed of being a war pilot and flying in the sky,

high above in the clouds like a condor,

blazing away with guns and blowing up the enemy planes.

Yet again, when I was seventeen I wanted to be an engineer,

I passed the entrance exam and secured admission,

alas, I discovered too late in the day,

I did not want to work with blast furnaces making steel and iron,

then I decided I would do something else.

I was twenty three and I was beginning to lose hope,

that I would ever see any of my dreams come true,

I thought I was a glib talker and decided to be a seller,

I took to selling computers and telephones,

but alas I discovered I could not sell Whiskey to a drunk.

I was thirty and heard of computer programming,

I learned Cobol, Pascal, Fortran and Basic,

I worked for years telling the computer,

the things I wanted it to do and the things I didn't,

I did this for twenty five years and now I am fed up.

I am fifty two now but I still dare to dream,

of becoming a famous poet and writer one day,

I wrote this poem to tell the world,

of all that I wanted to do and I still want to do,

I hope I live my dream before I take my final bow.