Poetry: Jyotirmoy Sil

Jyotirmoy Sil

Death of a sire

Beside a cylindrical pillar,

Where strange graffiti 

Merge with signs of pierced hearts

Infatuated names,

Lies a sire with his last few breaths. 

Numb lips seek to tremble,

"La ilah…" 

 

Folks pass this congested passage

Ignoring such annoying trifles…

 

"Dua! Dua!”

Vacant chants for steel pennies 

Discordant gibberish

Whips of hunger

Unheard melodies

For so many a years

Have been etching some tarnished epiphanies;

Like a rugged Isaiah under the elm

Telling of a forthwith rotten time,

Mutters the sire with shivering tongue,

 

"La ilah..."

 

One last time…

Before stretching the loon body for a rusted hearse,

With pale eyes and dried throat,

The fallen seraphim utters a twisted apostles,

 

"La ilaha...illi…”

 

Folks pass with covered noses

Ignoring such annoying trifles…

***

 

Requiem for a Scarecrow

 

A blurry field,

Gloomy sight;

A scarecrow!

 

Its mystic eyes and cruel smile 

As if waiting for ages

To induce a sire to its dark mires.

Cruelly ensnared…

 

Some archaic cults

In a morphed realm,

That perplexed mind,

Yet fixed nothing.

 

Flashing visions induced chaos--

Some days' clusters, 

Grandfather's radio

Broken decades ago,

Juxtaposing cold pebbles with tiny oysters,

Crossing unknown miles,

Mild breeze touching her hair,

Fragments of wounds,

Intriguing lines...

Stranger tides,

Cold streams.

Misty echoed commensurate with

Corrosive sublimation.

 

This is how,

When the thrashes in an ominous circle did bestow,

I desired to become a scarecrow.

***

Girl who walked by the railway track to school

She used to walk by the rail lines,

Swallowing tamarind pickle.

Way to school,

Back to the slum

Red tape of her shriveled hairs

Contrasted with the gray spheres. 

She used to hum the tales;

Of faded school bells

Frivolous errors

Mystique chapter on longitudes; 

Of dust and dipping inks.

 

She used to walk by the rail lines

Way to school

Back to the slum.

Flickered with tiny dreams.

Then this girl was married off. 

Heat of noon

Staggering bees

Fading fense 

Grammar or tense

Annoying trigonometry;

--nothing remains.

Sheer fense!

***

---

Setu, August 2022