7 books down, and I was told
By well meaning friends of the heart
Start
Writing a novel.  Now that would be novel
For someone like me
A lover of the short story
Genre. Honour-ing the demigods
Of the craft
Like Munshi Premchand and Kurt Vonnegut 
Poe, Manto, Chughtai and a glut
Of others
Revered for the grace and form
They built into their pithy tomes
These brothers
And a sister to bring them all home

I also dabbled in poetry
A bit of whimsy, some contrariety
A ravaged spirit or blithe wings
Made my poems weep and sing
But the short story
And flash fiction 
Is where my heart lay 
For 6 of the books
Where my pen strayed
Where the typed word
Lay bare its humming core
To hold words of wisdom
Emotions galore
(Let me disclaim these to be mine
Not of the larger space and time)

7 books like an epoch of weeks
Must of change rustle and speak
But a no-vel, well-no … that’s not for me
Or my pen or my sensibility
William Faulkner that sage divine 
Said it best when he wrote his lines
I paraphrase, this verse to fit:
“A failed short story writer is a novelist
And a short story writer is a failed poet”.