☛ We are inviting submission in the field of literature and literary theory in the form of article, book review, poem, short story, travelogue and interview for our regular April issue (Vol. 6, No. 2). The last date for submission is 31 March, 2025.

TRUE MEMOIRS

 


TRUE MEMOIRS

-          P C K Prem (India)

 Specter

Scene I

To execute a man was a playful music

a kind of nectar,

with an ethereal vanity

it makes people weak.

 

It finishes if wishes to govern,

I knew whoever is

if not, the coronet will be trampled

in a specious land,

as people whisper prayers in lexis hushed.

Scene II

On a stinking white cloak

physicians on attendance,

throw winks around and laugh

and I still wanted to live

and see the conspirators, friends, sons

and women of the harem,

want shares in epitaphs after death.

 

Streets full praying for a long life,

a riddle like a Chinese nod I tried to unravel

to write a poem under strain

I felt, was awful.

 

I faintly articulated, lips tried

to make circles,

found words flowing out in gushes

like a seasonal rivulet of dirty water.

 

Scene III

I observe a son closeted with the ministers

and relations in turn

all walk out putting up scared

and wishful faces as a son tells,

write suitable words to be inscribed

as an obituary on the gravestone.

 

Son thought I was unfit like Zafar

or like a spineless ruler I was forced

to sign papers,

to smother peoples voice

before a dark era of Indian history,

proved dictates of destiny

where men are just string-puppets.

 

Stunned, I feel burnt up

and the soul cries for relief,

in a crowd of cheats infinite

it is alleged as a world phenomenon

and before walking out

son tells not to write a poem,

but a befitting elegy for poetry.

 

He believes it an idle man’s fancy

correct I knew he is,

for frequent changes in poetic idiom disturb

he often tells.

Scene IV

A wad of notes bulges out of the pocket

as if buying an edit in papers,

and I find eyes dripping tears

as a nurse stretches me on the table.

 

I feel wrinkled face drenched

and hands wet,

as I listen to a limerick dead before birth,

a real verse is difficult I know,

in an age of cons and blogs

that invade fragilely plastic fingers,

while computing is filled with virus.

Scene V

Words on the mobile read, I am dead

‘Long live the poet ruler, I hear words

on the table,

while nimble fingers remove diamond rings

and necklace,

and I hear within deafening sounds

as cons get up for the ensuing chaos,

quietly I return to present though anguished

to celebrate death.

Scene VI

I take tea silently and stand distressed

before a window,

with a paper in hand and a haiku for a grave,

the document slips out

and falls into a pot-hole,

near a citrus plant growing

in a black sandy soil,

almost a gutter with polythene

littered around.

 

And next second a long–tailed dog

from a distance appears, sniffs, snuffles

and with a lifted hind-leg pisses

and runs away.

 

Alas, a funeral song goes down the drain

with the tearful eyes,

a picture of death

….I had yet to see.

 

I heave a deep sigh and get up

as I scatter around,

and walk into the dark lanes

in little pieces

of memory in search of a man

of verse and distinction

of music and love who died

a moment ago.

****