Common Coxswains

They row, row and row towards the sliding wonder world of a fleet of dahabeahs of elite on show afloat on bubbly milky ocean-blues like gold-threaded hammock of a lazy baron flaunting opulence, splendor and élan. They row, row and row! The common coxswains in crowded little boats carrying their weights, their plights and half-fed entrails; craving for the étagère at flotilla afar in iridescent glitter; baroque and extravagant. They row, row and row! Sooner or later they come to know there're no blades to their paddling oars. They wonder at their decreasing vigour; and their decelerating speed and find that lingering are their frail sampans in waters the way their earnings remain stagnant every year and the way their fortunes malinger. From gnawing slosh of an acid rill they smell the scent of their slowly burning hull. Their dreams of joining the gentry at last will prove to be as ephemeral as the pre-dawn fog that evaporates soon when rises up the billion-pronged piercing leister of gritty day-spring. Till then, they row, row and row!