Special Edition: Sriparna Mitra

Sriparna Mitra

Threshold of the Two Worlds: One World Fades, Another Emerges

(After a photograph  by eminent artist-poet Robert Maddox Harley, “The Axe Just Fell”)

When instead of a trident, Devi Durga stands with a rifle in her hand,

her gaze indomitable, confrontational.

She walks with her own consent,

no longer does she remain the subject of the gaze,

but the wielder of it.

From the womb of the world of photographic stillness,

an alien feminine flesh emerges out

who is no longer bound in the sculpted silence of an idol.

When she dissolves into the pulse of every ordinary woman,

she becomes an emerging horizon:

a woman with a rifle,

the second coming,

breaking the fourth wall to step into our unprepared world.

Meanwhile, the man,

once the protector, the arbiter of decisions, the landlord of dominance,

resists the chaos of confrontation.

He is no longer in charge.

He fades, resigns!

Shelters himself beneath the umbrella, tired of always being at the core

of the centre,

refuses to look back

into the eyes of the cameraman.

While the axe lies fallen,

questioning the ownership

of the second world yet to be born.

Note: Here, the mention of “the second coming” refers not to Christ or Yeats’s “beast,” but to the return of a feminine force that reshapes the balance between genders and upends traditional roles.

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Bio: Sriparna Mitra, from India, holds a Master’s degree in English Literature and Language, a B.Ed, and has cleared the NET JRF in English Literature. Engaged in writing poetry, she draws inspiration from the subtleties of everyday emotions. Her work has appeared in Paradise on Earth: An International Anthology Volume II, Double Speak Online Literary Magazine, The Wise Owl E-Magazine, Piker Press E-Journal, Masticadores USA E-Magazine, and Setu Bilingual Journal. She shares her creations on Instagram under the handle @sriparnamitra_poems.

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Setu, August 2025