The Blackout Poem by Shouvik Narayan Hore

‘It is impossible to love and be wise.'
Francis Bacon

In the perpetual world of mist and dew
An abode of splendidly adorned domes
Which each to each lay in eye-dazzling gold,
And marbles that carved were between the space
Oft admired by pigeons when passing would watch
Their luminous wings that basked in the Sun.
A home lay built midst the length of the sky
With clouds up top, and sylvan Earth on sides,
The pines and hazelwoods elevate where
No perspicuous wood would dare to pry.

A mysterious white would be circling round
And break into an aural red or blue
Like a thin stream of light, like dawn or dusk
Could come and go; And in between the rest
The intercepting light would cast a spring.

The Grand Old Man had heard the mountains' peace,
The trickling water from the gurgling fount,
The yak's silent treading across the plains,
The mule led to work by Masters of task,
And had overheard sleep; For he was God.
With his sceptred throne and destiny's page
Was open before his rotating eyes,
And wearing his unstriped white-coloured cape
I sat on His lap, For I was God too.

Far down on Earth, the midnight of a month
Saw a solitary road in two ways bent;
Both roads had borne a temple in the midst
Which closed had remained since the clock struck one.
While one among them was darker than night,
The other in a festive mood was dressed -
A sequence of bulbs with coloured ray glass
That under a tent would twinkle and blink,
A large chandelier was hung from the head
And bathed the people in a beauteous blue.
The sound of music had floated the airs
Of the January sky with peaceful breath
When walking a pale man reached over there
Where men had decreased in numbers by then
And watching the boards, he asked from the girls
Who frolicked about their conjugal palms.

'Is this the girl, the woman, whose right hand
Had a black mark on index, one on fore,
With her hair just falling right at the tip
Where ended her neck and began her spine,
Or wore two earrings that glistened as though
Of silver were made; Her necklace that had
The alphabet M well imprint on it,
Or spoke at length in a hurry, no more
With a smattering of her everyday deeds
And loved gossiping of her nasal curve
Or walked with delicate step, after step? '

'Yes, it is she.' They had resumed their talk.

'Two and twenty years have passed on, yet
Have never felt lonelier till this day;
While thinking of her with a vermilion mark
In between the two curled strands of her hair,
All dressed in a full red; An amethyst blue
That shone on her finger, third from the front,
An embroidered silk that adorned her skin
With hundreds of things like reflecting glass,
I wonder what reflect they - me? They don't.'

'I cannot wish her happiness, I can't!
Can Winter with its dead soul plodding there
In midst the snow, in midst the howling rain,
Can it anything but effrontery show
To Spring, the beholder of all things bright
Which now art thou, and which I ne'er shall be? '

'All my insides are burning with fiery flames
Of hatred, more hatred, sorrow and pain
As if all the thorns of acacia were
Punched inside, forced into my weakened heart,
And the latest feeling I felt was death.
How strange it is, that the presence of joy
Is obvious the reason of another's woe;
To say, I rejoice in her future good,
Is only to hide the omnibus truth -
That in your joyance I myself am dead.'

'But it is a crime! To kill in cold blood,
Thy perennial smile hast made me a sot
Who blank at the crumbling world-order stares -
Yet must it be so? Let you be grant life
To survive your frisk, and myself my woe,
Let God us life award! To both, not one,
Let one not die at expense of the next's
Sheer chivalric oath; Let sufferance no more
And no more the whine - but avail life first.'

This said, he looked for the girls' attention,
To his great amazement, they all were gone
And the light, the music, the little life left
In that place - was deserted - all were gone.
With consternation huge he rose and walked
To the edge of the road where the Temple stood
And waited there a moment - then slow took
The darksome road - on the bank of a pond
He heavily sat; - while the clock ticked two
I heard a low sound - he wept bitterly.

But then with a sudden, strong, nervous shake,
His head spun backward like epilepsis,
His eyeball inside the cavity quick
Was no more seen; As his hands loosened grip
He forward bent like a torpedo's hunch
And softly fell into the waters there
But struggled he not - a blackout it seemed.

His head first sank; his body followed next,
Not the slightest motion he showed or had,
When no more his curves were seen to rise,
I pronounced him as dead, for I was God.