About CC

Dr Prashant Kumar Panda passed M.A. in English from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, did M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Berhampur University in the year 1992 and 1998 respectively. After teaching in colleges of Odisha, he joined Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi in Aug 2002. He has two books of poetry- ‘Confused Confessions’ (1987) and ‘Blue Prints of Retrospection’ (2008). He can be contacted at panpanda@ymail.com.

1. Next We May Never Meet

Last time we met

black balloons covered the sky

and our eyes became blind.

May be now in your imagination

I am washing my feet

in the Desert’s heat,

where mirages simmer

to deface my friends’ faces

lost to life.

Attuned to old rhythm in your new mix,

you can’t hear the original playback singer

singing your glory and my agony.

May be by now you have lost sight

as days ridicule light,

and nights belittle darkness of all kinds,

so memory has lost its colour to oblivion

as ecstasy.

Since there is no need I would not wait

in a desperate and everlasting fit.

just to meet you and feel glorified.

2. Design For A Dream

When everything is dull and devoid of light

I collect mercury drops of memory

to paint a mirror that reflects

your glamorous lips,

and eyes allure me to design a season

cosy in the spring of expectations.

If you have desire to live like a queen

I will make you dwell in my dream

as if such a thing can be designed.

But now like hallucinations

convictions are illusive

and my dexterity to doubt

ruins all my whims.

So I shall shell myself in destiny

and describe it as my dream.

3. For A Smiling Relation

Sensible faces signal their disgust

in smiles of an indefinable sort

when crammed in public transport,

overruling the stricture—

‘smiles of strangers can be acknowledged

with smiles in return

only when guarded by

men with machine guns.’

Sanctuary of human relationship

has become a mirage,

to tell us the story of the killjoys

who show fact as fiction for physical pleasure-

body as a sensual discourse.

Their context is fixed in here and now

as a consumer directory can fix,

without any human consideration

to celebrate pleasure for pleasure.

4. Inspiring Scarecrow

When my experiment with emotion was over

i found myself an invalid

yet to be declared so

a complex manoeuvre has only saved me

from a disaster.

Or I could have been an eternal scarecrow

for the people in love

and for those who lost, a monument

to draw inspiration.

5. Life In Animation

Problems grow like watermelons

resolutions melt like butter

average man and woman

slice the loaf of their lives

in soft strokes

to make it tastier then possible

on a spread table of comfort and passion.

To bewitch the neighbours,

they sing and dance

with strangers,

and speak of it in language

not native to their listeners.