Mannequin Song
To every soul whom I have hurt, forget it
I’m learning to take myself less seriously
If the joker returns for his dues, I will plead
My hands are empty still, I didn’t win
I didn’t win, but I called, I did call
My heads or tails didn’t drop, the coin didn’t fall
It shot up to the sky, the moon has still not rolled
I am traipsing down the ramp, but I’m still not sold
It’s so heavy the body I bear with it’s wounds and blues
The curse of love is that we are all free to choose
I can’t blame the coin for not rolling to my sweet will
It just danced it’s way to the moon and learned to be still
And she sold my freedom back and I paid her nil
If we lose our saved nothings, the pain do kill
Deliver me oh Lord to your shopping malls
I was running through the morn, now I’m learning to crawl
I am crawling and I promise I will learn to be still
Displaying the nothing between my limbs, I won’t blink
If you like the clinging clothes, please buy me too
I need to pay my rent and my devil’s dues.
Image Courtesy: The Crawl by Christopher Jordan Barrish
There, I’m going to write something out of context again but I’m badly shaken up today. Are all men born chauvinists? It erks me to think that they believe that they can get way with anything and the worst part it is that they think that they are entitled to it!
Life’s Elsewhere: Dear Amrita. What happened to you today is so disturbing…not all men are born chauvinist, but yes, they are all born in a culture immersed in chauvinism. It is easier to be a chauvinist here.
This is beautifully written,
I am glad to have found this place,
Sending you the songs of the unbreakable heart and soft light for the path,
Maithri
Life’s Elsewhere: Welcome Dr; incidentally in Sanskrit-based language like Bengali, my mother-tongue, Maithri would mean friendship
A rather beautiful poem, I must admit. I admit because I am a critic while I comment, and critics always admit, don’t they? I found the second half of the poem weaker than the first. The strongest, most haunting, and the most beautiful parts of this are the second and the third stanza. One grammatical typo: the first word of the third stanza should not be “its” . . . I think you meant it’s.
Another beautiful and quite a discerning statement: your reply to Amrita.
Life’s Elsewhere: Thanks Ritwik; and thanks for the critical eye. I am correcting the typo. I have a problem you know, I get images (here it was the tossing of a coin, direct influence of the oscar-winner No Country for Old Men
) and the running-turning-to-crawling-turning-to-mannequin-stillness. Then it becomes a problem of elaborating these into a poetic idea.
While rhyming poetry is often considered (well, I am presuming this based on what I read) somewhat passe, there are real layers of difficulty and complexity in attempting it (might also be termed “discipline”). The temptation to let the rhyme determine the meaning rather than the other way around is always great. Nice to see that you have given it a shot (and successfully).
Life’s Elsewhere: Hi Oscarandre! Welcome to my lair! I remember seeing you at Loubird’s. Well, call it an idiosyncrasy, I always write with the model of a song in mind. They sometimes have collateral unsung tunes too! Yes, it is difficult, sometimes ideas overpower patterns and it becomes hard to twist things back. It fails many a times, and I am always not sure if the reader can catch my rhythm.