Engagement Poem by Satyaki Majumdar

Swim, turn, rest, incline.
Meander midst rivers of time,
Streams come together to flow
And sometimes, to drift apart.

Much is said, perhaps too much.
Little is done, perhaps too little.
In the midst of this Island of Time,
The green rivers pass us by.

Yet it is ours, this little place,
Where people sit, talk, sing, dance.
Where the unseen hypocrisies of unseen people,
Evade our little pockets of happiness.

We are happy, we are mad,
We like honest, brutal sad
Boulders on the sea of conversation
Holding on to our land of memory.

The castle in the distance looms
Threateningly over the half-shades ranged before it,
Battalions of war creep
Through the fleshy underbelly of the world above.

Clawing at the heavens,
Lines of immortal ichor drip,
In tracks of agony, on our skin.

Inside the tower, a lone maiden stands,
Cold, disdainful, hard as stone. She talks to no one.
She sees no flowers, no faces, no blood.
She sees only the darkness overhead.

Deep inside, she thirsts too,
For the blood that is so freely given to others.
The poet's heart, poor thing asks to forgive.
Yet, looking at the shades, the chains and the blood,

The poet turns away.
So does his demon lover.