Subhra’s poem explores the concept of being “right,” questioning its source and the influence of history, literature, and language on one’s perspective, exclusively for Different Truths.
I am right.
Why am I right?
What makes me right?
Every time I venture into the cobweb of
anomalies
It seems apodictic and inconclusive.
I am not from the golden age of
Caesar
Nor do belong to Elizabeth’s England
Yet tints of their rise and fall,
It feels so fresh and lively.
Last night, I cuddled you with Kant’s
Pure Reason
I have been rightly following through Fielding.
Dofoe, Camus and Shakespeare
It is still unknown how you make everything so right.
Reminiscing for how it all started
I find nothing but your vague presence.
Like the flimsy rays of the golden sun
How you brighten up things incessantly.
Oh! Do you breathe really?
Of course! Or else you would have long
thrown out
Into the catalogue of extinct tongues
You know...extinction is high on sale
And for preservation, we strive hard in vain.
Let us engage on a claptrap
Purely between you and me
How like a nincompoop I dare to ensnare you
With my pre-given something
May be this generates such precision.
No... no...
I beg your pardon,
How biased and slanted it seems
As it is your generosity that makes me
right.
Your demystification appears improbable
And the best of Saussurean explanation falls short.
Yet to tranquilise a gluttonous spirit
You unveil yourself like people around me,
Sharing a structural similarity,
Yet never look akin.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Subhra Souranshu Pujahari is currently a lecturer at Gangadhar Meher University. He holds an M.A and M.Phil. in English literature from Sambalpur University, Odisha and is currently pursuing a PhD on Sri Aurobindo and Romance. Pujahari has published numerous poems and research articles, including a chapter on gender equality in the workplace. His other research articles include “A Critical Reading of Bakhtin’s Epic and Novel” and “The Appropriation of Trauma in The Waste Land.”
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