Poetry Feature: Sankar Narayan Mallick

 "Perennial Poet-to-be"

Never have I been a poet as such,
 always a poet-to-be.
 
 Poems have been somnolent to me,
 on the leaves of misty mornings.
 And waking up, they are in flight
 on the wings of birds in the blue sky.
 
 Poems flow away with the shy streams
 in unknown hills and dales.
 Sometimes do they sigh faintly on dew drops,
 drowsy and dilettantish.
 
 Poems leap to life in the roadside,
 In the eyes of a stranger.
 When I look again at it, a bit startled,
 it is there no longer!
 
 Poesy flows all around me,
 tiptoes in and out of the house I live in.
 It dashes in and disappears at its sweet will,
 shines and splashes off and on.
 
 Poesy flows in waves with fire and flowers,
 with the faces of fiends and fairies flashing by,
 daring me to put them on paper
 in a prison of a poem,
 flinging a piquant provocation to me,
 the perennial poet-to-be.
 
 © Sankar Narayan Mallick

MUSE MATTERS: 01

"The Muse Looks Away"

I went a long way walking...
 to pluck a bud of poetry
 somewhere on the roadside
 In vain did I walk and walk on
 and kept walking for long.
 
 I sat in the forlorn noon
 looking at a mute sky
 lest a line may shine somewhere
 even as wayward birds flew
 and a few butterflies
 fluttered weary wings
 here and there
 the field of poesy lay bare.

When the Muse looks away
 All around are tidbits of things, events
 and lump of facts cold logic.
 Music is muted, vibes recede.
 A sullen silence sits on
 Waiving off the waves.
 
 All are fossils pretending life,
 smoke and shadows
 ashes, arid rocks and skeletons
 scattered in sixes and sevens.
 
 Life is poetry in motion
 and meditation
 I did say the other day.
 It is so when the Muse looks on,

Music plays all the way;
 and not when the Muse looks away.
 
 © Sankar Narayan Mallick

MUSE MATTERS: 02
 
 "The Muse Looks On"

When the Muse looks on,
 life is poetry in motion
 and meditation.
 
 Agony and ecstasy,
 exuberance and ennui,
 renown or anonymity,
 all now is sheer poetry.
 
 On the silent stony lips,
 shadow of a smile
 may appear for a while.
 The Muse may not say yes
 or utter a word of inspiration,
 but grace one with a glance.
 All on a sudden,
 buds begin to bloom
 and the limping world
 is all set to dance.
 
 Even as the Muse looks askance
 from far, far away,
 lamps are lit, fairies fly,
 fresh winds begin to blow.
 And the weary world is all aglow.

The far and the near,
 the alien and the kin,
 touch each other
 and become one in a trance.
 
 When the Muse looks on,
 the artist wakes up to the easel.
 The poet, to plume and paper.
 
 One wakes up,
 amazed at the image
 in the Muse-mirror!
 
 © Sankar Narayan Mallick

Shri Sankar Narayan Mallick is a graduate in Economics and Postgraduate in Management from Utkal University in Odisha, the Eastern part of India. He is a development banker and has worked in the field of agriculture and rural development in Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Mizoram. He is presently working as a Chief General Manager in NABARD and is posted as a Principal of National Bank Staff College at Lucknow. He is a bilingual writer and poet, writing in English and Odia. He is also into translation and review of books. His passion is reading different genres of literature in English, Odia, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese and listening to music. His hobby is studying the nuances of different cultures and schools of thought in philosophy and spirituality.
 
 You may contact the author at his gmail address: sn.mallik21@gmail.com