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"I have known music to be her timeless reverberation in a forlorn corner of my soul; just when life was closing down upon me with its pangs of haunting silence."
"Hope is the point the 'world within' comes to an equilibrium with the 'world around'."
"The cold that my body feels can be comforted by pullovers of our choices. It is the winter that comes back each year, inevitably; is how we are connected on the face of time. A sweet suffering of forever..."
"My poverty, I know, was glamorous because trading you, my love, for a better life is outright heinous."
"Love was the day when she drank and I felt quenched."
"Life, ever since, had been one gripping tale. Your happening gave it a genre."
"Want is the soul's desire. Need, the mind's crave. Love, thus, I believe, is a bit of both."
"Art is how you lie to the world without ever feeling sinned."
"Sorrow is true and beyond the powers of healing, when you can taste the oceans on your lips."

Conquer

Conquer
~ Sobhan Pramanik | Sunday, July 08, 2018 |
i know places you reminisce
your melancholy in, and no wonder
you never evolved.

the park bench you
burn frigid nights on,
dew upon your eyes and
menthol cigarette to your
lips, with your ashen spirit
winding skywards in smoke,
is where the aging gathers
every morning to whine about
their arthritic knees, or quietly
count upon their rosary.
the coffee shop you
invariably frequent,
taking to the farthest corner
that looks out to a bustling
road, the chair’s foam there
irreversibly sunk, and tabletop
warm with sun-tamed shadows of
vehicles crawling down its limbs; it’s
where the high school doers escape
with their infatuations: hold hands under
the table, and clandestinely pass
phone numbers on folded napkins.

grow up, boy!
for a change, wander the
old city fortress on a bright sunny day.
wait under high echoing domes and
watch the bats sleep-swing
from invisible alcoves, the air
redolent with bat shit. wrap
your palms on the heavy bars
of airless captive chambers,
and peek into the dark: you’d
see emptiness repenting the
death of inmates died hundreds
of years ago. war slaves Aurangzeb
had pronounced banishment from life on,
in cells of his fort - with ankle locks, torture
and starvation. walk out into the porch and
watch the garden ablaze in bougainvillea,
the walkways green with sheets of moss,
and the sound of water trundling to roots
along channels dug centuries ago.
reach out, drag your fingers on laterite walls
and feel the hot prick of friction ushered by them
from countless craters and broken edges
gaping at you. know that they are wounds
caused by mortar shell, enemy bullets and
earthquakes that couldn't manage more than
a crack. spend a day in the dust of history.
roam the citadel's darkest of alleys,
and read its brave stories of sustenance.

or maybe you should just be there.
just be there with those walls that
defied bombs and calamities; the spring
that never left the garden; the rains
that still pour in its honour; the prisons still
bearing the haunting cries of men who'd
kneeled on its cold floors and begged for death,
and the sun continuing to rise over corpses
of derelict times, shining like a jewel atop its minarets.

it’s amid blood, battles, banishment,
and the ultimate triumph of braving it all,
that you'd know why they’re called monuments.

now go back to reminiscing if you will,
to whimpering of your betrayed heart.
would you still say love damaged you
beyond repair?
.
.

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