I was reading Manu Joseph's Serious Men and this poem is inspired by the scientist Arvind Acharya who had fallen from grace after his lofty ideas about extra-terrestrial life went awry.
IN DISGRACE
The arrow left
the bowstring, taut,
But defied the law
and went askew.
Vile creatures,
Stormed my shrine,
Once a fortress
Held by science supreme.
The wrinkled skin,
of my senile self,
Sagged in a trice
Crushed by infamy.
I waited in vain
for the fires to abate.
But my boat had sunk
and the vigour had died.
A cascade of images: the hunter or warrior with his weapon failing him; the lone defender of a castle beset by foes and fire; an old man waiting in ignominy; the captain of a sinking ship...The images seem to vacillate rapidly from forest to castle, from land to sea - so fast within such a small compass ('in a trice' indeed!) that the mind reels. Perhaps you can take one of them and develop it into an extended metaphor. of these, the old man, his skin sagging, doomed to ridicule in his old age strikes me as the most interesting image. the others are good but rather familiar. An old man who ought to be the pillar of the society is here reduced to a pitiable figure. It makes the reader wonder: 'How did such a great fall come to be? Why should he suffer so?'. Very reminiscent of King Lear.
ReplyDeletenice one Bhanu
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeletegood one!! (y)
ReplyDeleteawesome.................
ReplyDelete