ghost
Poems
NIGHT CRAWLERS
The city sleeps
By the dark river,
Too tired to think—
About the hustle and bustle of tomorrow. . .
The sky has a hush glow,
Not a single star show,
Only distant lamps
Shiver—in cold. . .
The city sleeps in deep slumber. . .
A squatted shadow—
Cloaked in gloom—
Waits, and waits—
For eternity. . .
A squelch in mud?
A weary slouch?
Someone has risen?
Trudging through?
The mole cricket holds its tongue. . .
The shadow sighs—
The strain of a frail arm
Beckons—as it shivers,
In fear? in cold?
‘Let’s go’—they say each other,
‘Let’s go!’
—dyutiman mukhopadhyay.
March 2020.
Picture © DYUTIMAN MUKHOPADHYAY.
EMPIRE OF PASSION
From far away—
I saw the glimpse of us—
Just for once—
Locked in embrace—
In that dark-lit room
Of the haunted house.
And then in a trice—
I could see us no more—
Two flickering flames—
As if we vanished—
Into thick white fog
Of cold and dark.
And I searched—
And searched—
For both of us—
As I kept on hearing—
Our moans and cries
Of pain and pleasure.
—dyutiman mukhopadhyay.
Tribute to Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali short story — ’The Hungry Stones’ (Bengali: Kshudhita Pashan) written in 1895.
The title is inspired by the French-Japanese film 'Empire of Passion (愛の亡霊, Ai no Bōrei, 1978)’ produced, written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima, based on a novel by Itoko Nakamura.
November 14, 2020;