Calcutta, seen
Somewhere in a city
Half a goddess unattended sits,
An early coat of crimson drying
Carelessly on Her clay-skin,
While on a wall, unintended,
Shines a sickle of crimson same:
A relic from a time of revolution,
Of ideals, of passions now dimmed.
A living picture of futility;
Of a quaint, anochronistic Beauty.
Somewhere in a city
Stands a grotesque juxtaposition:
A monument of yore,
With triumphant arches
And phallic columns of vanity
Piercing the sky with unabashed gore -
Surrounded by a wretchedness
Of wires and human dregs:
A fallen lion surrounded by a murder of crows.
Of the many wonders unseen,
In a city that lies dead as a corpse
With buzzing bees and maggots unclean,
Only a few have I known.
But every time, in liquid-neon nights,
When I venture out to my Muse:
A host of ugly surprises awaits me
As She reveals Her casual truths.
About this poem
A friend sent me an extremely thought-provoking street scene of an unfinished idol of Devi before a backdrop of Marxist iconography. Incidentally, both were in stunning red. I was immediately thrown into a trance about anachronism, piquant oddities and accidental beauty/irony that exist across so many elements of my city, Calcutta. And about how Calcutta never fails to inspire, darkly perhaps, but inspire nonetheless.
Written on November 03, 2022
Submitted by anubratomusic on November 03, 2022
Modified by anubratomusic on April 04, 2023
- 50 sec read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | Abxxxxcxaa Acdxadbxx exexxxax |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 854 |
Words | 169 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 9, 8 |
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"Calcutta, seen" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/141800/calcutta,-seen>.
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