Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
Alleys
are Filled with Future Alphabets
Alleys
are Filled with Future Alphabets:
Gopal Lahiri, Rubric Publishing, Greater Noida, UP, India, ISBN:978-81-945865-8-6,
Price: INR-275/-
A tender delight envelops the reader. Gopal
creates enchanting and unusual worlds within this known world. His linguistic
prowess tantalises the senses as he expands the realities of normal life. From
the outset, you are captured by a master raconteur, whose imagination and joy
in the minutest detail defies the senses. His ink dips in and out of alternate
realities and the seemingly normal hides layers of existences. Each line needs
a pause, a melding of mind and reality.
In his poem, "Forever” Lahiri
conjures up a dreamscape with the words: Night’s piranha swallows the
pale moon", an evocative nod to the eternal cosmic shifts.
Paced through the collection, a sense of waiting
appears, as if all that is known reality obscures the true meaning of life. A
questioning hue colours the words as they drip off the page, perhaps allowing
the reader the temptation to muddle through them in any order and hope to
emerge triumphant, after solving the mystery. A pause to breathe in this
poem, "Seeking Silence", where the poet lures us soothingly in with
these words, “dreams are now cupped in folded palms, a human voice is
nonverbal in meditation".
Nature’s vestment of cloud and air, of tree and bird,
paint a sacred path through his world. Gopal reflects on life and his path in
it as easily as breathing. Nothing escapes his attention, as if the world goes
by in slow-motion, and all he must do is pluck the still image in front of him
and present it as a poetic stanza to the reader. In his poem,
"Autumn Muse", Lahiri's bold dance with words evoke powerful emotions
in the lines, “red and purple flowers drink the morning blood in mystic
silence!”
The poem, "Diary Page”
encompasses the poet's skilful yet tenuous hold on all that life has gifted
him, and he meditates in prose with, "My diary page is weeping. A
window is screaming in verse, no one is listening". Another poem
that quietly asserts itself in the reader's psyche, "Stagecraft",
whispers these images of artistic thought, “the evening blossoms in eerie
milk like fog ambling across the horizon".
Teeming with the fullness of emotion,
the poet freely personifies everything in his mental gaze, so that each moment,
each awareness, brings the reader closer to an undefinable truth of life. In
his poem, “Wet Memories” these words fall like tears on a broken heart, “the
smell of absence opens another darkness.”
As the world shudders through the
many pandemic waves, Lahiri observes in his poem,” New Epoch” that hope still
lingers, that life will go on, changed but determined in his gentle telling, “Sometimes
the paws of sunlight enfold the landscape its searching quivers behind the
brutal tenderness". The jarring juxtapositions in his lines
scattered throughout the anthology, sears the images and intensity of his art
in the mind of the reader.
Scattering the compass of human experience, the poet
is decisive in his role, exultant in commanding the heavens to his will. Love,
worship, death all form part of his arsenal of poetic music. Swaying
to encroaching human experience, the poet and reader are taken on a magic
carpet ride. Open your eyes if you dare!