SUMITRA MISHRA

 

Daggers Drawn

 

I don’t know how and when

The daggers were drawn

Our love turned to hate

Or when love displaced hate,

Resisting the temptations

To rehearse my love for long

I became dumb and deaf,

While trying to fight back the hate

My daggers turned to stone.

 

One night,

All lights out

The stage of life

Turned bloody red!

 

I used all my nerves

Trying to keep the lights burning

My stock candles of smile gradually depleted,

Trying to replenish your craving

My reserve of self-esteem drowned

In the flood of your debunking epithets.

 

To save you from the arrows,

I used all my shields

In return, I was pelted

With stones from all sides

And fired by missiles.

 

The dilemma, you couldn’t solve

Nor could I,

We are tuned to the same frequency

Of doubt and dismay

Though you and I know

The tempests of hate and friction

Can never conquer over our truth and love.

 

Funny Façade

 

You cheated us with

Your funny façade,

Mr Robbie Williams

Just like the funny Mrs. Doubtfire!!!

 

We didn’t know

Your funny face was a façade

Oh! Dear Robbie Williams

We didn’t know

Your humor and jesting

Was only a disguise

To camouflage your deep despair

Your slapstick comedy

Another trick to conceal

A lament of the recluse.

 

May be,

We didn’t care to notice

The gloom

Around your twinkling eyes

The despondency

Beneath your menacing tone

Nor did we dare to understand

The dreariness

Of your lonely pathetic existence

The depression

Behind your manic expressions!

 

Oh! Dear Mr. Robbie Williams,

You moved me into rollicking laughter

And tears in your comic double role

As my favorite Mrs. Doubtfire,

Not me and family only

You enchanted

Like a tricking juggler

The audience with your affable smile

Like a joyful joker

You mesmerized the spectators

You created magic on stage

With your simulating voice

You feigned, posed, pretended

Trying to conceal your insecurity

In laughter, jokes, pun,

In cunning smiles and sham appearances.

 

How did we fail to observe

The oscillating emotions

Shaking you like the Zephyrus

And blew you into the blind alley?

 

Was it your wife?

Your career?

Loans or loneliness?

 

Did you not dare

To trust your fans

To share your stress

Before you stepped

Into the pool of darkness

Plunging us into the

Middle of melancholy?

 

SUMITRA MISHRA

 

Dr. Mrs. SUMITRA MISHRA, a bilingual writer from Odisha, India, is a retired Professor of English who worked under the Government of Odisha and retired as the Principal, Government Women’s College, Sambalpur. A lover of literature, she started writing early in life and contributed poetry and stories to various anthologies in English and magazines in Odia. After retirement, she has devoted herself more determinedly to creating literary works in English and Odia. Her poems and short stories in both English and Odia are widely published in literary magazines and e-zines. To her credit she has thirty six (36) published books; 26 in Odia and 10 in English. She writes poems, short stories, plays, essays, articles and translates works from English to Odia and from Odia to English. She lives in Bhubaneswar with her family.