Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Epitaph of Abinash C. Halder


My decorated files
Full of records and prize
Are burnt into fistful of ashes tonight.

Pinpricks of shame
Have shrivelled into dust
Inflated statues in the museum of self
Where regrets cry out ‘No Vacancy’ tonight.

Fired from the palace of hope, therefore,
I wander as a beggar
And knock on all the graves
To interview empanelled skeletons tonight.

Farces all done, I’ll get me a new boat:
Charon will drop in for his coins tonight.


Note: Charon is supposed to ferry souls to Hades, according to the Greek mythology.

15 comments:

Matthew John Davies said...

Please get in touch with me, Abin. Eager for correspondence.

Gemma Wiseman said...

OOOOOoooo! Entering the dark side of legend! Fascinating ideas!

Mary said...

Abin, I hope you are doing all right; but the references here indicate you're going through a hard time. If there is a boat in the picture, I recommend a tropical island rather than Hades!

Daydreamertoo said...

Oh, this is dark, emotion filled and great imagery!

Scarlet said...

Dark and brooding poem...I felt like I went to the edge of Hades and talked with empanelled skeletons ~

Wishing you Happy Monday, Abin ~

Kerry O'Connor said...

Gosh, I love the idea of visiting the museum of self. That is a very unique image in a poem of self-abnegation.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Wow, "fired from the palace of hope"! This poem is spectacular from the first line, increasing in wonder exponentially to the very last satisfying word.

Mystic_Mom said...

Abin - this is dark and deep and draws me in. Well crafted.

shawnacy said...

really really interesting imagery...
the panel, the journey of the river... the loom of the destination.

so much here, abin.
great work.

Semaphore said...

An interesting delineation of an immediate emotion and its relationship with mythic imagery.

hedgewitch said...

Love the title, the adroit use of repetition in the finishing line of each stanza, and the mythic feel to the narrative. The last two stanzas especially are well imagined and grim.Excellent poem.

Karen said...

This is powerful with a touch of the macabre.

Unknown said...

You've given us a glimpse into the next realm, Abin, where ashes and dust and what they used to be no longer matter one whit. You've condensed an epic tale into a tell-it-true brief poem, and done so with skill!
http://www.kimnelsonwrites.com/2012/05/21/take-action/

Unknown said...

Thanks you for the look inside the self

Arijit Mukherjee said...

The poem opens with a Kafkaesque denunciation of the self. The ‘fistful of ashes’ to which the self is reduced seems to be devoid of any “certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life” (Book of Common Prayer). The enumerated archive of various accomplishments is useless and unable to save the soul. The futile narcissism leaves the self in an existential crisis as it is expelled from the ‘palace of hope”-the “lordly pleasure-house”(The Palace of Art, Tennyson) faces destruction. Banished from the Palace of Hope the Soul’s search is to find a place for refuge. But the ‘palace of hope’ is replaced by the Palace of Tartarus where the enrolled empty ‘skeletons’ are to be sent. An interview can only ensure the assured pathos of destiny. It is impossible to elude the compensations one has to meet with as Charon, with his keen gaze, assesses the life with a perfect precision. The irony lies in the fact that one has to pay the wage to be freed from the barren life only to be projected into an eternal abode of castigation.
"The Epitaph of Abinash C.Halder", brilliant in its precision, becomes a universal epitaph of the suffering humanity. It construes the predicament of a Humanity whose epitaph is devoid of any romantic notion that a man who has “Found death in life”, may after death, “find life in death!”(Epitaph, S.T.Coleridge)