An ice cream cone is not a leprechaun

Under the Gulmohar tree after a tired day
Sits the tiny  boy, looking at the immensity gray.
There is a pain in his right shoulder 
Ah, the nights have become colder. 
His incarcerated dreams
Stealthily creep
As his tired eyes fall on an ice cream vendor
But his heart feels like an offender 
As he guiltily yearns for just one ice-cream .

The tiny daily wage earner
 Who is still a learner 
In the rough and tumble of life
 And ceaseless strife
Once again  locks his dreams
For one more night .
No longer yearning for an ice cream, 
He will have it at a later time 
In a better clime.
When he has learnt to tackle
The different roles assigned to him  in life's pantomime.


 No more ice-creams 
Resolutely , he licks his lips
Staring at the plump boy, hands on hips
Greedily slurping ice cream upon ice cream.
He quickly closes his eyes on the dream.
 He needs  to send the money home
He says to himself, wistfully looking at a distant dome.
 No , an ice cream cone 
is not a leprechaun.
Who will lead him  
To his stash of gold hidden beneath a rainbow
This he must  know.
Sleep my dream, sleep, he tells his dream. 
No more will I yearn for ice cream.
He also promises his friend , the  moonbeam.

As darkness descends
 One lost owl flits  about
 Like an   idea in doubt.
A mangy dog, in sympathy tries to look mangier
And the music from a nearby eatery  becomes clangier. 
A bloated frog swells out its vocal sac and croaks.
 On his dream the boy chokes.

The ice cream of his dream melts 
Into nothingness .
And the boy closes his eye on the dream
And  goes into a REM sleep.