The Unadorned

My literary blog to keep track of my creative moods with poems n short stories, book reviews n humorous prose, travelogues n photography, reflections n translations, both in English n Hindi.

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

The Bulbul: A Serenade

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Seventeen years down the line I'm still writing. My best is yet to come. It's only too elusive. Anyway old grapes are the currants of today..not stale but something to wistfully savour. As I go back and back, I find this poem of mine, a serenade. With no simile and no metaphor, it was simply my unadorned muse. I wrote it on 25-201998, to be precise, when I hardly knew the meaning of the word serenade. Still I wrote it for what it's worth. I like going through it, reliving the moment and muse. Aha! A reward, a self-reward.
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It provokes a surge of nostalgia now
Aha! Once upon a time donkey's years ago
Aha! Those eventful moments of the days of yore...

The lovely little Bulbul
Braved the frightening look
Of a grotesque scarecrow
And sat upon its shoulder
With a deja vu writ large
And started to sing...
chui-to-ture-to-tui
chui-to-ture-to-tui...
His sweet inviting melody
His lively, enchanting rhyme.

Forcing his novice throat
Streams of rhythm
Escaped effortless
To far and near
To every cul-de-sac and all the corners
in quest of a connoisseur
His sweet little adorer
Finally to bump
Into that dreaming little doll
Seated there on the windowsill.

The cute little Bulbul
sang serenade and and sang once
And went on singing then on
In sweetened intervals
Of waiting and encores, for Dolly, the Juno
And she beheld motionless
Through her eyes eloquent
And curves sensuous.

Then on one fateful spur
The selfish intruder
The 'legal' owner
Of his long-forgotten doll
dying for a cuddle
Came, grabbed and escaped
In his briskest possible steps
Miles away from the rendezvous.

The lovely little Bulbul
Returned ready the next day
For even a sweeter spell
Of his heart-throbbing melody 
to melt her finally
But alas! With dismay discovered
The windowsill deserted
Confounding and clueless.

The cruel surroundings–
Sombre and sneering
Stern and sarcastic–
All had already assembled,
to ceaselessly deliberate
Sitting in judgement
For his millionth crime 
And his unmindful confession. 

None to say him an au revoir
Nor a parting promise for his memory lane
His undying hope for a miracle kindled,
Bulbul the impulsive, started to sing
A few more melancholy tunes 
Along the streams of tears
His lovely, lonely tears. 

Before bidding the reluctant goodbye
To his straw throne on the scarecrow
And the memorable dreamy window
The lovely Bulbul sighed 
melting layers of sentiments
Wiped the droplets of distress
In his sickly shaky hands
to mingle in moments
In the distant unfailing horizon.

Port Blair
25-02-1998
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By
A. N. Nanda
Trivandrum
04-11-2015
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