Vagabonds of the Countryside

 

Umangee Sharma (Ulupi)

 

There goes seldomly the Vagabond

Lingering in the Cotswold Hills.

Unequivocally in search of another barm cake,

Yet his favourite seems to be some marble rye cake.

Where is he from? What does he want?

Unlikely are the questions that will always daunt.

I reside in the selfsame lane as his Cotswold Cottage,

Nevertheless I ever found him rakishly dressed.

The moonlight shines through his saggy and wrinkled cheeks

Although his clothes shabby and his hands remain filthy.

Drenched with all the escapades and affairs of the past,

Something bitter has caught him to dawdle with utter ghast.

Should I talk to him once?

Maybe he might sense a dash of jubilance.

Not quite harsh are his doe-eyes

Presumably are vividly virtuous and wise.

I saw him for the first time in the canal of the Countryside

Sitting alone by the bench;

Starring at those flock of pigeons

No wonder he has always remained lost

In the deeds and battles of his yore.

Gone are his blooming days during springtime

Now finally arrives the autumn days,

With recollection of his salad days.

I heard from the neighbours,

He disappears like the overcast after a massive downpour.

I couldn’t succumb to my fears and so… I probed

‘When do you plan to come back again, Dear stranger?’

Quite sophistically he replied,

‘I am neither an eager beaver nor a benedict;

I am one of the Vagabonds of the Countryside who lingers in vain’

 

 

20:20 PM

 

BURNING ECSTASY OF A PARAMOUR

 

The soul drenches

Not with the freshet of beatitude

Rather filled with spicules of ecstasy

A paramour enquired,

‘Why does the rosarum spicules?’

How implicit of a question could that be?

A paramour enquired,

‘Can she have an identity that disparates her essence?’

Isn’t she created out from the homphonic hands of the Universe?

A paramour enquired,

‘Why is her aplomb always contested and protested?’

Why is she the epitome of desperate impugn of debate?

A paramour enquired,

‘Why is it that the cascade of passion crunches calamituous adversities only for her?’

Is it her frailty to fall into the spicules of rosarum?

A spicule enquired,

‘When did we drench you with our weapons?’

The esoteric women within the paramour retorted –

Passion is what pirouetted me into a paramour,

Drenched me with those spicules of rosarum

That were once merely the Life of Riley.

With the unwavering relinquishment of my John

I have departed from my bordello.

Only with spicules of ecstasy,

Fantasies turned into shattered chimeras,

That will agonize my soul in perpetuity.

 

 

Death and Departure.

 

Tickling the ivories

With lonesomeness in heart,

And the envisage of the essence of culmination.

Everything keeps me secluded from it.

Frolicking has abandoned me long ago,

And now what is left is just a mere manor dwelling in abandonment.

With desolation filled in it’s walls,

And portraits of dark black forests where a girl lingers barefoot and with a night lamp.

Souls screeching in pain,

As they are discarded and forsaken by nature.

I am still clinging on to life with no zeal to survive,

And yet there seems no sign

Of death and departure of my soul.

Of all those souls that shared the same room, space and energy with me,

Am I preordained to ache and agonize just like how you do in this wretchedness?

My purport was loneliness

To live every inch of it,

And thrust my every nerve, vein and stream of blood with it’s poison.

I left the warmth of delight and pleasure a long while ago.

And now with the memoirs of its mere existence,

I wish to suffer with hindrances of hopes and happiness.

Hopes of death and departure

Will my soul bleed in sorrow too?

Like the ones that I saw being tormented.

This mansion has ages of history,

And has painted its walls with the tears of it’s Masters and Mistresses.

I have painted a wall too in my room,

Not with tears but with the blood of my own hands,

It does look beautiful, horrifiyingly beautiful.

Ofcourse that’s who I am or claimed to be, leastwise.

Stains of horror and blood,

Amalgamated with abundance of loneliness in heart.

With no signs of death and departure…

I still long for him to arrive,

In black trench coat, with fangs and a magic wand in hand.

The scarry sound of his boots that trembles even the ancestors…

Helping me in crawling towards hell

Where my soul shall burn and rot.

Filled with the atrocities of the past,

My soul too shall linger around.

And bring loneliness to others that are about to come…

Oh dear walls of loneliness! I will come again,

But with no existence of flesh and breath inside me.

 

(09.03.2025)

 

 

 

AUTUMN

 

Boulevard filled with drizzles

Of sparkling dewdrops on the autumn foliage.

Eclipsing over the cluster of trees

Just like the supermoon overshadows anything that comes it’s way.

There is cloudburst, constant cloudburst

Over the bridges, over the dorms, over the houses,

Over the pasture, over the streets, and over the earth.

I am here sipping my late night coffee

Down the lane runs a man covering his head

I had some similar encounter with him

On a November beaver moon night.

Although crestfallen thenceforth

Despite the incessant endeavours

It was all futile.

Yet I kept on gawping

At what?

Ofcourse at my own splintered fate,

Wrecked and destroyed.

Was it nemesis or some astral influence?

Or my innate knack to chase it all away.

Still sipping my late night coffee

Reminiscing all my sweet juvenile blunders

Returning to the ashore

Appalled me with the evocation of the gone by days.

How ludicrous my existence was!

There were no adequate traces of the man and me

And yet we were never torn apart by any thunder or by any autumn

And now I stand here in my porch

Far away from the autumn sadness,

Still contemplating the encounters.

My goodness, The storm doesn’t seem to cease

And neither my overwhelming thoughts.

Still sipping my late night coffee

Hearkening back the grotesque mansion,

Of irritating bay windows.

Where I just stand and peep into everything

Everything that I ever wanted for myself.

And now I stand here in my porch,

Repulsing over every brick that made the mansion and the man.

Although there are still no adequate traces of the man and me.

Yet my coffee starts tasting bitter

As I ruminate disgustingly

Of all the foolishness I had performed excellently

Far away from the autumn sadness

Yet traces of rancor still continues to persist in my veins..

 

(11.08.24)

 

 

Umangee Sharma is a writer, researcher, and trained Bharatnatyam dancer from Guwahati. With a Master’s in English Literature from Amity University, Kolkata, and a Bachelor’s from Assam Don Bosco University, she has explored literature both academically and creatively.

Her research on feminist interpretations of mythology was published in Indian English Fiction: Recent Critical Dimensions by Dr. Ranjan Lal. She has also presented papers at national seminars, reflecting her keen analytical mind and passion for storytelling.

Writing has been her lifelong companion, shaping her thoughts and interactions. Fluent in English, Hindi, Assamese, and Bengali, she weaves narratives that bridge cultures, emotions, and intellect. Whether through words or movement, she believes every story deserves to be told.