They forgot to put my body on fire
On freshly chopped logs of wood
On oil cracking and boiling
*****
They forgot the charm of cotton ball plugs, the sight of wetted white petals of fecund flowers, the absent-minded twirl of smoke chains, incense sticks, the sonorous trail of holy hymns, crackling sounds of earthen pots and above all, the communal mourning around a corpse
****
Instead they hurled me down inside a pit – laboriously excavated, dark and deep
And, instantaneously covered it up with fast-setting slurry
With a sleight of hands that can be defeated only by mystic magicians at work
*****
So, I exist there frosted miles below
From where you are waging your philosophical wars on trains against commuters struggling to reach their offices on time, commissioning ecstatic cocaine soirees on yachts and rafts, executing orgies with strangers on a plane, stealing antiquity from private museums of nouveau billionaires
For you had told me once: I will blow up my life
Indoctrinating me with the scent of your body and introducing me to the nucleus of this explosive club: Death rattle Clan
****
What holds me here is an intricate web of undefined silence and darkness – so pure in form –
In this marsh of soil, water, plant roots and rotting flesh
****
You worry sometimes, don’t you; struggling in sleep:
Do I remember your face and touch as I crossed over the perimeter of life?
Do I know that your face is one among their faces?
Do I remember all their faces as distinctly as I should?
Do I remember our plot of blowing up our lives?
Might I end up sharing it with a fellow corpse?
****
Remembering and forgetting are complex phenomena even otherwise; more so after you’ve crossed the gate
****
Sometimes – nowadays – I will to laugh at our words – words crafted out of beliefs – mostly non-beliefs – yet preached with so much intensity, precision and timing – a way of time passing for all of us at this explosive club: Death rattle Clan
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Powerful. Very powerful words that should rattle up slumbering consciences.
Powerful poetry, no doubt.
But I hope life inspires us all more than death.
Dear Sabarna,
Nothing could be more beautiful than the lines composed in this poem. Death comes in different forms, of varied hues, a world we all will experience some day but do not want to think about forgetting that it will be a beginning of an end rather than the end of all things to come.
In your lines you have very nicely and descriptively mentioned the hypocrisy of society and the dark shades of life against the brighter shade of death.
Well written..
A powerfully morbid piece.