The Ghost-Killer

Sunrise:Kodaikanal

The Ghost-Killer

The sun is out and the dream will melt

Like a sand castle succumbing to raindrops

Like a tiny fluff of cotton getting blown away

An ice-cream dripping to finish before one’s eye

A cotton candy shrivelling out of shape

The sun is out and the dream will melt….

Is it possible to finish everything unfinished—

Oh yes, the task one leaves in the midst dream?

The dream: that’s my dream that ended just now

With a scream ecstatic welcoming the joy

Within my reach and so very tickling.

A feel of warmth still running down my spine

Look, still rigid are the goose bumps, all over my skin

And refusing to fade they are, never ever for a minute.

Is it, then, possible to finish the unfinished

Now that I’m out of the wonderland

Bright is the sky and crumpled is the sheet

With no dream advantage worth the name

Sans weapon and empty-handed?

Well, the answer could be ambivalent

Perhaps ‘nope’ and perhaps ‘yes’.

Perhaps sometimes, one cannot say.

Perhaps…it depends...but then and how come?

If ‘yes’, then how to restart?

And if ‘nope’, then how not to?

Here’s the ghost I’d killed while sleeping

Bodily present before me and taunting

And tormenting me a lot just for nothing

I’d have to chart it afresh,

The tortuous course of agony, the labyrinthine

And he is happy and alive, howling and dancing.

Just a minute ago in my dream

He’s so meek, you can’t believe

Aha! His nose touching my feet, so submissive

Loved to die for a change to dole me a victory

Only a drama then it was, his begging for his life

To make me enjoy the kick of killing!

Gave him I the choice, his due, a dying soul’s due

AC or DC, the current of his choice

To die awake or asleep, depending on his wish

To lacerate to death or gasp his way out

To drink hemlock, if I could arrange a gobletful

Nevertheless he went dead before me, and I’m sure.

The ghost deserved to die so very cruelly

After all, what hadn’t he done all his life?

With no compunction how he stole everything

Wresting my life’s possession from my grip

How could I stand the scene

Enjoying he with vengeance everything of mine?

True, he had the power to choose when to die

But who on earth did dare him for once?

Merrily ceding him what they possessed

Lived they by choice, on borrowed time

Everything needed his permission

To love and to breathe and to call a spade a spade

But none did care about raising his voice.

A pact with the devil?

Was there no way other than this?

For honour’s sake, he deserved to die

Did anybody think it even for a moment?

But dared I, I dared him in my dream

He had no go but to choose his nemesis

That was his end, and I can vouch for it

Just a minute ago, when silence had seized.

If not left to be finished some other time

Jobs are easy always in dream

Like stealing a glance or smelling a jasmine

But easy jobs rarely appear in my dream.

My dreams are only for killing

But they’re always half-finished.

Berhampur//2-8-2005

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By

A N Nanda

30-09-2012

Coimbatore

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