MATCHBOX

In poetry, it is very important to release our own system before the many bodies working out there. Some would develop a connection with them. Others will become repulsive because of self-doubt and unawareness. Verses do not rely on technicalities. They rely on whatever breaches those techniques. To attain these qualities, one has to be sensitive and observant only to be able to feel the delicate moments and to not get veiled by manipulative voices. Gopal Lahiri’s book of poems Anemone Morning and other poems, is a reflection of the poet’s thoughts which form tributaries out of the mind. All these tributaries have something to say which cannot be conveyed by living inside a crowded head. These poems claw towards freedom, free the writer’s vulnerabilities and unaccomplished desires. The objective is to acknowledge complete the finite wishes in this infinity.

In the poem Azure Music, the poet squeezes the expansion around him to keep before us a few drops of its sap by drawing it back to its origin – his self. There is a reason why the human mind is equal to the universe. We have explored a similar percentage of both the brain and the cosmos. To draw us back to our thoughts, our minds have to include everything associated with our primary senses. The poet tells us how necessary it is to relive the moments not only to experience them but also to learn what slipped off our hands. Only then we would be content with finite elements.

I will sing, not knowing which raga or lullabies

not knowing,

How close I am to the edge, to that place, I wish to go

not knowing tomorrow,

Just one day, I will listen to the music of Azure,

Just one day.

Spirits are nothing but energy. They have the kinetic energy to maintain movement and seek for another body that resonates with them. Their potential energy helps them to be patient. In the poem Incomplete Prayers, Gopal Lahiri speaks about the spirits which reside around us, not to scare us, but to quench our loneliness. At night, we satiate our bodies with thoughts that scare those who are fond of daylight. There we leave our prayers incomplete because, if we go by science, human metabolism slows down during night time. So, whatever we do, our body would not permit us to reach completion. When we release our insides out, our mind quietly transports into the place of nothingness. The poet says, our children enter the sanctum. We hand the incomplete prayers to them.

The night does not see anything,

but in this brightness of saliva,

all of us leaving behind

incomplete prayers…

It cannot be denied that human actions have already exhausted Earth and it is only a few years before it gives up on us. It has not yet shed us out of its memory and so we are getting to cherish another day. Gopal Lahiri in his poem First Page, speaks about how we are filling oceans with our debris and establishing the death of whales as a collateral damage. We do not believe in developing our listening skill to understand the voiceless creatures. Those who work on it drive to fill the ears that have stopped listening, eyes which open to a fake world. The poet questions people who find peace in being killers. He also asks us if the entirety gets to the end, what would be our history? If something like us grows here, it will live to write a bloodbath and it can’t be a content of the first page.

What will happen is already happening.

Will this be evidence in future studies?

Of human extinction?

Or such a thing on the first page?

Anemone is a flower that’s delicate and sensitive. To address something that’s unlawful and nefarious, one has to get disturbed. Those who do not have their feathers ruffled even after listening to a riot, or a murder or a gang rape, they cannot be referred to as sensitive. People who bloom and live a life like that of Anemone are going to dissent and protest. In the poem Armchair Puzzle, the poet disturbs readers by giving us a glimpse of what women have to go through in times of crisis in a patriarchal society. He breaks a mob’s intention by dissecting its actions to violate a woman. Later, he puts a dagger in the heart of those who relax in their armchairs and throw a few words by keeping their safety in mind. Change will affect every living or non-living constituent. Those who are afraid of confronting the metamorphosis, their cowardly protest can crush the movement.

they come with terror and destruction

bodies slither into pieces

the arc of growing up – eight across

a blank is left – armchair is the best fit – 

Anemone Morning and other poems is an important addition in the poetry circle. It addresses diverse issues from the perception of the personal self. One can deny what the poet writes. Others can agree with his opinions. But what remains at the very centre is how these verses cannot be ignored.