An Island Mystery

Of the several known
Mystery lyrics, which
I had heard and learned a few,
Allan Poe with his rhythmic
Rhymes and
Flannan Isle of Gibson
Are topped.

Here is my story,
Set in a peaceful island village
Surrounded by some discoloured
Fuming waters, foul smelled,
To which the only inward way was
A silver-tanned rusted bridge, iron made,
And both the lightest footsteps, and
The jumbo treads alike had turned
It into violent shakes with
Crackling sounds.



After passing this wayward bridge
I drove my bike further
Through a shattered way
With gutters and all,
As directed by my artist friend
Who dwells somewhere
In one of those
Rustic gloomy ghostly homes
Made by time-eaten
Bricks and clay.

As I moved forward
In those shadow cast evening
With my curious mind
In search of a hermit's house
Where my thoughtful friend resides,
The darkened broken path became
More and more damp-like, and
The greenish fusty trees began to wore
Some puzzling smell and growing dark as well.

In the end of all,
When I reached his dwelling place,
Set in an enclosure
Made of time-worn
Degenerated bricks covered by terracotta,
Dipped in a smell of ancientness,
By throwing open its wooden cave-like door,
Partly disintegrated,
I stepped into the courtyard
Dense with plantains and coco palms,
And with stinking smell of snakes.
From the old perishing house
My friend appeared
By opening an ancient door, about to decay
With his usual hearty smile
And with flashing eyes.



Time ran swiftly
In his closed antique room
Where we discussed the popular things,
As well as the heartfelt tales,
The politics, cinema and literature,
And some of our genuine experiences.
In between this, what I missed to notice
Was a touch of eerie air, that
Made his dwelling place a little bit congested.
The creepy air, and the darkness grown
Together made me to ask
About his experiences with ghosts
And unknown spirits in his
Dreadful dreary den.
His answer made me to shock
As he mentioned certain queer experiences
With an invisible thing, that
Beat him occasionally,
During sleeps or his busy
Writing schedule.

Let me tell you first,
These creepy damned things,
Called ghosts and spirits
Had never made an appearance
In front of me before,
As I have a strong distaste for both.

Soon, I heard a voice,
Rather thump like one, and with a start
When I looked at him, what I saw was
His gleaming glossy eyes, and he said
In a pensive voice,
'You know the old mango tree near?
Where it had happened, that cold blood murder
Of a pregnant girl, Ah! who was
A little comely girl.'

With no delay
And with no further telling of tales,
I took my leave
By grabbing my soaked cap, and
While running out I noticed
His meditative dubious eyes,
Now covered by a pair of specs.
I ran through the open courtyard,
Now wet due to the drizzling rain,
By tramping the weeds and plants
Under my quivering feet,
Towards the closed cave-like door
Of the outer wall, where
I had stopped my sidekick,
My sincere motorbike.

Now at a distance,
After drove my bike through
The similar way,
I looked back with
My eyes protruded, and I saw
In the night,
That old ghostly figure of house,
Stands, by emitting an air of eeriness
And with its genuine touch of ancientness.

Goodbye Examination

Once again I have prepared
For an examination
By picking up some dust-ridden olden
Carriers of the knowledge
Those have been adorning my chaotic table
For many a long academic eras!
My preparations lasted for several years
With several not-so-long months,
Sleepless nights and
Chilly early mornings
Those provoked me some time
To curse the unending warfareWith the black-inked
Tiny pack of letters
Stamped on cheap white papers, and
Many a times it made some of
My fellow beings envious
And made some of them to appreciate
With heart felt admiration!


Shakespeare, the bard came
In my visions many times
In the late night,
Sometimes, Eliot and Dickens came
In the early morning with
Their portrait-like amusing smiles
That even made them alive in between
The quests for a theme from the
Random paths of life that they trod.
Certain Women writers of the West
Amazed me with their mastery over
The flowery fiction
Covered in their long term sufferings of
Diseases and isolation -
Like Austen and Bronte sisters.

Indians too were there
Who made me stun at the word power.
Tagore came first with
His Song offerings,
Later Toru, with her short-term life
And her homesick writings
Too had made even the owners of the language
Stuck at the thorns of amusement.
Arundhati and many more
Supplied me with wonder at
Their imagination power.

Many a days in the morning
I rode my bike through an endless way
Covering several kilometers
Touching city struggles as well as village virtues
To a center where I let drop
The burden of language
Wasted by those masters ofLiterature. And I returned, throughSome familiar paths after
A three hours struggle with the
University paper and clutched pen
With aching sinews of palm.

Now it is all over,
The struggle with the forced yawns,
The read through the lines without a blink, and
The speedy revision just before
The last bell,
The tension on the hall ticket, and
The agony on the finishing moments, all!
And occupied now with an effort to
Gain the longing sleeps and lost dreams.