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The Soul’s Wilderness

Srinjay Chakravarti

1
An alpine peak
with its diadem of snow,
and a solitary mountaineer
abseils down the slope
leaning against the cloud-marbled sky.

2
The parajumper’s
heart in his mouth,
on the brink of surrender.

Earth’s turntable
rotates its mosaic of
trees farms fields houses
green yellow brown white

a landscape corrugated
with canals and streams
till his feet, turning -
a record needle
pointing in vertiginous axis.

3
A shark’s toothy smile.

The sharp sting
of an electric ray shimmers in its whiplash.

An octopus stretches out
eight handshakes.

The diver descends,
his eye’s lustre
seeking that of a pearl’s -

underwater, the loneliness
of scouring the sea-bed
for death to yield
its meagre treasures.

4
Screeching tyres scatter
a bouquet of sparks

Wind-roar
in the ears,
or blood:

pebble on a slingshot,
the tight arc
on the circumference
of the arena.

The motocross driver’s
essential aloneness
with only acceleration
and adrenaline
for company.

5
Machete in hand,
the poet makes
slow weary progress
through the foliage
and treacherous undergrowth.

Following the spoor
of words,
to where it leads on:
lair of wolf tiger lion

all alone with the darkness
of the midnight hunt.

Poems copyright © 2003 Srinjay Chakravarti

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