THE LOGIC
-Jayant Mahapatra
Recline in your upholstered chair
under the lemon-yellow logic,
in the golden corner of the light
clasping geometric hands together.
Point a finger, quote;
success, or something alike
construes you an accomplice.
Reviewing your cosy composed gesture
troglodytes had to find out,
you will not sleep with centuries
any more as with your women,
no more than you would
find me to be proof of you.
My skin cups unblemished milk
you shatter each lonely vein with,
my devoted pads of flesh pave the ground
for what you strove to accomplish.
Make me small and edible, love.
This scalp hurts not from the steep drag
of your hands but from my own practised drivel.
I watch your body ease off the seasons
stretched out on the stone of my breath,
going nowhere.
My hands move on.
Inside the lines on my moving palms,
is it time being sent back to somewhere far behind
on the edge of dream?
Is it that
which quietly shuts my eyes?
And outside my hands, where
your body keeps shrinking in space,
the first faith of some child goes wrong
like some defect in a mechanical toy;
yet what does it lead to?
To what fateful encounter?
Like a misplaced watch, this half light.
Where was I when I lost it?
Q. Write a critical analysis of the poem “The Logic” by Jayant Mahapatra.
Ans. “The Logic” is a poem by Jayant Mahapatra. There is a woman speaker in the poem. She is perhaps a wife and addressing to her husband. He is, perhaps, a geometrician and possesses an intellectual quality. The tone of the poem is sad and serious. It is about the limitations of human understanding and the transient nature of life. The poem begins by describing the man reclining in an upholstered chair, surrounded by the lemon-yellow logic of their own understanding. This person is confident in their knowledge and quotes from their success to prove their point.
However, the poem suggests that this person is limited by their own perspective. The troglodytes, or primitive people, cannot relate to this person because they are not able to connect with centuries of history in the same way. The poem then shifts to a more personal tone, as the speaker describes their own body and the ways in which it is vulnerable to the actions of others.
The speaker asks the person in the upholstered chair to make them “small and edible love,” suggesting that they feel helpless and powerless in the face of this person’s logic. However, the poem also suggests that the speaker is complicit in their own subjugation, as they have “practised drivel” that contributes to their own pain.
The poem ends with a sense of uncertainty, as the speaker reflects on the passage of time and the ways in which it affects our perception of the world. The first faith of a child goes wrong, suggesting that our early beliefs and understandings are often misguided. However, the poem also suggests that this uncertainty is not necessarily a negative thing. Even as the speaker loses their grasp on time and their own understanding, there is a sense of wonder and possibility in the unknown.
