Poems by Tamoghna Mukherjee

Saint
 
‘Shall I ever be so pure that only saint’s tears could be my mirror?’
–Emil Cioran
 
The shroud of consecrated privacy was torn apart,
and I suffered from my unsolicited birth.
 
Numerous mothers fall drowsy in my shade
and go on blabbering about their onomatopoeic sorrows.
The deluge of affection that now submerges
the unfathomable crevices of my austere breast
will surely engulf me someday.
 
I am that blind prophet who contaminates
your instincts by chanting, “Mercy! Mercy!”
I am that limping mendicant whom y’all have beheld
in tears while his crippled lips were uttering,
“Motion! Motion!”
 
The shroud of enigma is torn apart,
and simplicity bludgeons me.
 
Numerous damsels place the weight of their
first blood on my mouth,
and the tongue eventually loses all its prowess
to utter incantations.
Repentance gets the better of me;
now the clusters of your anguish radiate epiphany.
 
After overlooking numerous worn-out corpses,
your feet finally stumble upon my maimed body.
This is what predestination is all about.
 
In the dead of night, in the crematorium,
your gazes drift towards the diabolic void hovering above.
 
The shroud of expression is burnt down then,
and my soul transmigrates into a peacock
completely drenched in tears.
 
This is what transcendence is all about.

​
 
Word
 
“Listen! And they heard it—pure and crystal tone—the silence.”
Vicente Aleixandre
 
 
In this serene daybreak, recall those utterances that are still pristine 
though used for umpteenth times. Recall those confessions
that have witnessed the death of numerous trees within y'all 
while you were engrossed in jotting them down.
O indifferently automated friends, the moment I stare at your faces
I discover nothing but numerous sarcophagi of foreign languages!
 
Whose words do you utter now? Whose screams have you been
translating while butchering your own smiles?
Here, godlike children are growing up witnessing such brutality;
in the beginning, we were overwhelmed by noticing the possibility of
the resurrection of those dead trees in their wailing,
but have understood gradually— such wailing remains 
indecipherable... remains abjectly antithetical to confession as well.
Here, the childlike god is wriggling all over those slaughtered smiles--
not words but silence is essential in order to transcript this sight.
 
In this tranquil daybreak, invoke Fire to burn those intact utterances.
If any visage, worthy of words, ever appears after several generations,
we'll surely find today's cinders in its gape.
Language, with its arbitrary game of imposing meanings, will arise again.
 
O enigmatic friends, just keep your hands on silent water for now!
Neither words nor the layers of meaning, only the mind
that realises silence is the relic of your final salvation.

Tamoghna Mukherjee writes poetry in Bengali and English. His works have appeared in magazines, like Anandabazaar, Krittivas, and Muse India, etc. He has read poetry at multiple programs of AIR, Kolkata, and was invited to Festival of Letters (2024), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. He has two books of poetry to his credit.

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