By Shakti Pada Mukhopadhyay
Marble Poetry
We visited the Taj Mahal, the Crown of Palaces, on a tour. The artist’s Shangri-La was bathed in a Full Moon. Love-stitched marbles, while in color but gnawed by time, failed to shine with its stolen youth. The love of Shah Jahan and Mumtaj enlivened the moonlit Taj. The writing on the gate, “O soul, thou are at rest”, made time timeless and love ageless. But time had slain Shah Jahan and Mumtaj and ruined the empire. I felt mesmerized as the love of yester years was streaming its flow to the future. Spirits of love moved faster than time, touching the destined. Wrapped in embrace whispered I, the meaning of love to my wife. Eternal love I could see in the eyes of my wife. Past time and future time were dissolved in present time.
Romeo and Juliet Today
Sensual tunes and the cozy Moon made the night illusive. Waves of wines, laughter and scents swirled through the jostling ladies and gents, with sleepy faces in the room, adjacent to my flat. Waltzers swung like waves with slow paced steps and shrill whining scales. Well dressed guys danced with hands tucked in ladies’ waists. Bodies strove hard to come even closer. Some roared and shrieked, as the clowns had pranced in joy in the birthday bash of Linda. Confetti rains drizzled with drips of golden flecks. Linda had driven the blade softly through the glittering cake and blew out the candles with a whiff of gale. Claps echoed in the air, causing the birds to flee from the court-yard. Confetti stuck in her hair and some in her tongue. Lovers danced in the masked ball, with eyes lost in them. I had gone to bed in the weary hours of night, but a hue and cry rapped me from my snooze. On the fuzzy floor bodies of Linda and a masked man lay hand in hand. Circled the bodies the scared revelers, as the death of the couple a Doctor had averred. Behind the mask it was David, the lover of Linda. David and Linda hailed from two dynasties with history of perpetual ancestral enmities. In disguise David came to meet his beloved, though prohibited they were from marriage. For the clueless death, the cops sent the bodies for a post-mortem test. From Linda a suicidal note then, unveiled a paired suicidal case. A painful page read, “Goodbye to all amidst wreaths and mirth of my natal day, which I feel is the funeral of the former days. Parents have made paper confetti of our hearts to make them fragile and crushed, lest our love may bud.” “Too small this world is for love, but it has united our souls forever. A fatal dose of Belladonna, the deadly nightshade, will join our names on earth after death. Hope our eternal rest will pave the way for a perennial truce between the two warring dynasties.” Viscera report in the meantime stated the presence of the toxic nightshade, which had lasted in blood untreated beyond the tolerance stage.
Salvation
In a clinic-bed I was lying, but relations wrecked my dream for heaven(or hell ?), as the vitamins & the minerals had dripped to frame normalcy. And the Doctors aired ardency. In a dozy state I lay, but thoughts had purled in my head. Faces of dear ones had rippled in vision and swayed. So early to God for His settling, was I to submit my reckoning? But I had felt better next morn and a patient, John, sitting near the window, greeted me with a morning bow. Eager to make me gay, he tried to relay, looking through the window, the beauty of the world which had unfurled. Began he to narrate, “A fluttering lake cadges the sky to mate. Lotus blooms to date the cygnet. A colored fish leaps for the morning trips. Milky white caps the peak on the other side of the creek. The hill beams for his face on the shining lake.” I praised John for such a break. But next morn, I was told, “Left John for his heavenly abode.” Down my cheeks, tears were gliding. I felt John had left me barred from the outside world. But the nurses took care to help me window side on a wheelchair. Thirsty I was for a scenic outside, but couldn’t see any creek or peak. Only a wretched wall had stood alone and the nurse made me surprised to tell that John was blind. But he strove to move the guys through his veiled eyes. John left a lesson for all, “Live for others, even at the dying bed, since life is a waste lest die for others’ fest.”
Humane Face
Friends planned for a party at the “Digha Beach” at night. After the prolonged pandemic for the last few years, people felt suffocated inside four walls. With a decelerated graph for the impact, decided we to have a night-fete at the beach. My little daughter took the reins to plan with an eco-friendly brain to save the mobile macro fauna active at night, like Labidura Riparia or Talitrus Saltator. Small in number gathered we with sartorial elegance at the beach. Some had worn lightweight breathable fabric and others loved white lace jumpsuits or swimsuits to glitter. Soothing lights and sober music ensured not to stress the faunae. Showers of sanitizer had drenched us and we kept a safe distance to stall the risks. Tiki torches and paper umbrellas put in drinks made all to dance in dreams. Some had sunk in Sangria or punch, but some chose lemonade post-food. Eyes had tucked to close, but safety led to a distance. Starry night had played to grin at us and sandy hair and salty air wished the night to last forever. Light songs replaced party tunes to put out the Corona fumes. Kept my daughter a close eye on the moving faunae to help them back to safety. Crabs changed their tracks to go back to the sea. We had hastened with a heavy heart and packed for the departure. The beach was cleaned by us to make the morrow brighter for the mobile arthropod faunae. My friends had bidden adieu and praised my daughter for her love for Nature.
Eternal Journey
Out of the womb of mother, before time I was in the minutiae of life. But time didn’t teach me the way out, like Avimanyu1 and Icarus2, who had faced destined death with spells behind them. My world moved, keeping hours behind, to reach targets and goals and to fulfill the mottos and the roles. I was keeping in pace with the world before time, well in time or in no time. But the sun was receding to the west and I became a nomadic, with wishes peripatetic from beauty to beast. Water had swirled through Tames and Volga and visited I Chichen Itza with my pneuma. But colored mind turned sad for the hobos beside the palazzos. Icy alliance kept me beyond time, which was flitting me. Friends and kins had checked out and good deeds fell flat decrepit. The world looked alien, leaving me alone to the path of humanity, lighting the grace of eternity.
1. Abhimanyu, a legendary character of Mahabharata, an Indian epic, learnt the tricks of entry into Chakravyuha, a multi-tier defensive formation of warriors, while he was in the womb of his mother, Subhadra. But he could not learn the way of exit from it and was brutally killed in the Kurukshetra war.
2. Icarus, a character in Greek mythology, attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings of feather and wax, made by his father, Daedalus, an architect-cum-sculptor, who had also made a paradigmatic Labyrinth. But Icarus had flown too close to the Sun, ignoring his father’s advice, burning and melting his wings and was drowned to death in the sea.
Lunatic
“Come down, uncle Moon and mark a dot on the temple of my son”. Begs mother for her son, but the Moon never comes. Pleads the mother to son’s father, to bring the Moon from the pool. Runs father, a drunk angler, with his net and finds the moonlight, a dream spun web. Disk of lune nears the edge of the trees, where the sky meets. He throws his mesh to catch the silvered disk. The web seems crumpled and jumbled in the rope. Some lights float and some flicker and the fisherman in joy, tries to trap the Moon fifty-fifty. Some broken threads of the net lie in the air, some in mud, some in water and some cut at the end. He tries his best to catch the Moon even in pieces, but finds them waving away. Clouds, meanwhile, arrive, as the translucent spirits of the bizarre night, to save the Moon, taking him in a veil. The angler failed. But he had slapped his head in distress and pledged to try again.
Shakti Pada Mukhopadhyay, MA (English), was an Executive in a Bank. A lyrical drama written & directed by him has been staged with vast popularity. His writings have been published in a number of magazines like Borderless, Passager, Molecule, Better Than Starbucks, Tatkhanik, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Poet, Deep Overstock, Mindfull, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Indian Periodical, CafeLitMagazine, Down in the Dirt, Muse India, Shabdodweep, Bibekbarta etc. His writings have also been accepted for publication in the near future in some other magazines like Scarlet Leaf Review, etc.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 