ODE ON SILENCE

                                                                                             

  
                                   
                   

   


                                             

           1 )                Silence, so-called sweet spring of joy

                                 Turns often, alas! A bitter cup of pain

                                 When Beauty slights and mocks with disdain

                                 The fawning heart with youthful pride;

                                 Silence erects an insurmountable chasm wide.

           2)                   Silence kills a lonely, languishing heart

                                  More grievous than a poisoned dart ;

                                  Unseen, eating into vitals, inch by inch

                                  Cut off for ever from one’s own dear mate

                                  Withering to roots, an unimaginable state.

           3)                  Hearts blocked by stubborn barriers of doubts

                                  Reel under parched feelings of drought

                                  Silence creeps in with Satanic fang

                                  Evil thoughts crowd upon, a gang

                                  To bombard Love and cast a Promethean suffering spell.

          4)                   A cutting edge Silence suddenly reveals

                                 When one’s own dear depart for realms

                                 Unknown, unseen, unheard, too far to feel

                                 For earthly senses to perceive

                                 Irreparable loss for us, in vain to grieve.

       5)                     The widening gap of time, of course

                                 Silences one when youth boasts of their glorious prime ;

                                 An alien uprooted from one’s own space and time

                                 Rhymes not well with changing modern trends

                                 To Time’s unconquerable will, old age bends.

     6)                       Silence looms large in dreadful nights

                                When one bemoans one’s sinful fate

                                None to console, a dismal sullen state

                                Sleepless hours like dire furies seem

                                Like whipping devils, past acts roar within and scream.

    7)                        Misunderstandings with one’s own friends dear

                                Erect a hellish growing hurdle steep

                                What loud eloquence dares to convince and clear

                                The pall of doubt and perverse mistrust?

                                Silence smolders one's bosom slowly to dust.

   8)                        Silence, a tricky language of mysterious fate

                               Our questions stay unanswered with an uncertain swing 

                               Man’s keen intellect can’t unfold every mysterious thing;

                               Unseen forces play around --- beyond his grip;

                               His rocketing frolic, a mere sophisticated slip.

 

   9)                        Silence shadows even golden empires

                               Leaving their glories ruined entire ;

                               Wrecked and mangled by timeless fate

                               Mute witnesses, those memorials great

                               No use of egoistic talk can conquer silent state.

 10)                      Silence of godly heights immense

                              Seems not to relent upon our woes

                              Society shaken by violent throes

                              Of destructive vandalistic acts;

                              Silence reigns grim –a final concluding fact.

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       Note:  1) The ode is a Greek poetic form with a complicated rhyme scheme and complex structure written in a lofty style. In regular ode the stanzas have equal number of lines with a fixed rhyme pattern. In an irregular ode, the stanzas have unequal number of lines and the rhyme pattern is also irregular. In this ode I have followed equal number of lines but with variation in rhyme scheme like abbcc,aabbc,and abacc . The last line is longer in length having 11 or 12 syllables.

              2)  Silence is the language of gods; silence is the language of a spiritual seeker; silence leads us to explore our inner self. 

But silence on worldly level also has many shades of meaning and feeling.The silence of a rejected lover, the silence of a deserted person from one’s own people, the silence of a jealous, scheming person filled with doubts, the silence of a guilty sinner, the silence of a person deceived by his untrustworthy friends, the silence of a person whose near and dear left this world, the silence of a person with uncertain future,the silence of an old man who is out of tune with modern trends and the silence that rules after the glorious kingdoms have disappeared from this earth etc. I have described some of these aspects in my poem. The whole creation has emerged from silence and ultimately dissolves in silence. Even the holy sound “OM” has evolved from silence.In brief silence is more eloquent and more mysterious than most incomprehensible discourses.

 Ref : Promethean Suffering = A demi-god who stole fire from Mt. Olympus and gave it to men for the benefit of mankind. He was chained to a mountain cliff and made to suffer for many, many years as he rebelled against Zeus, the Lord of all Greek Gods.

       Furies = Three female spirits with snaky hair who punish doers of heinous crimes.

       Satanic fang = refers to the deceitful act of Satan who tempted Eve in the guise of a serpent.

       A sophisticated slip = Mistakes done by physicists who explore galaxies.Even their rockets cannot reach the numberless galaxies of this ever expanding universe and their knowledge is not infallible.

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25th March, 2017                                                             Somaseshu Gutala