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” by
Jayant Mahapatra is a poem about the limitations of human understanding and the
transient nature of life. The poem begins by describing someone 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,” 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.
