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| Mitra Samal |
1. Abandoned Love Poems
Dedicated to the love poems found scattered on tracks of the Odisha’s tragic train accident site.
I am the poem searching for
my poet who is in another world,
trying to create verses.
Verses that would penetrate
realms and reach her beloved,
hopefully still blessed with life.
I lie on the tracks of the train
crumbled, grimy, and waiting
with eternal patience that
only comes with devastation.
For some tender hands to
pick me up and draw another
rose of peace and love,
To churn few more lines,
To rhyme few more words,
To make me come alive,
To help me find a place
in a considerate heart.
Few soiled feet walk on me,
Few wheels crush me hard.
Some click a photo of me,
They disown me like my dead poet.
What is a poem without a poet?
A bird with wings but still can’t fly.
There is hope where there is life.
Are there compelling lines that
can even transcend death?
***
2. Awareness
I see past in future, shadow in light.
The door that I am banging on
may never open, yet I wait outside.
In my best dreams we are still happy
but the pleasure is always limited.
In the waves of the ocean, I see
its fathomless depth, the whirlpool
that I might never escape.
To replace thoughts is easy but to
completely banish them is gruelling.
The lanes of my mind form a
conundrum, I realise I have lost
the keys to the locks in my life.
The end of a dark tunnel might
as well be the start of another one.
To be only positive, is to be
ignorant about the dark.
Darkness exists and the very
first step is to acknowledge that.
***
3. Silent Reverie
Time has stood still at the corner
of the road for decades,
His daughter left and never returned.
The tree never reached for the sky,
Its branches stoop down with the
weight of unanswered questions.
A mongrel lies amidst the shoes strewn
outside the temple, whose God his
wife no longer worships fervently.
The afternoon lullaby which she sang
to an infant daughter reverberates
in the empty room, haunted by the
ghost of cheerful memories.
The house at noon casts the darkest
shadows of absence.
The swing in the courtyard, hangs by
a single grimy rope and drags itself
with one end lying loose on the ground.
Life trails few quarters to death with
every passing moment, yet a few strings
of hope remain, awaiting his daughter.
***
Bio: Mitra Samal majorly writes poems
and stories. Her works have been published in various literary magazines
including Poetry Society India, Kitaab, Muse India, Setu,
Borderless, Madras Courier, and The Punch Magazine among
others.
She is presently living in Bhubaneswar, India where she is a Software Consultant with a passion for both Technology and Literature. She is also an avid reader and an award-winning Toastmaster, who loves to speak her heart out. She can be found on Instagram as @am_mitrasamal
