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The gift to create form, from the mist of imagination, is pure magic!


Friday, November 11, 2011

The Lure


28.5x20.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with water colourwash (Click on image to enlarge)

I set my eyes on yours. The opening to a primal dance of desires burning on eyelids, a toe less tango of wits. It’s an invitation which entices and liberates notorious hope into a magical trance. You play elusive, I play right into it. I try to learn by heart, every fluid move of yours; the mocking arch of an eyebrow to the smug curling smoke at the corner of your lips. I devour your words like the tempting apple of Eve. I scoop up a handful of your shadow and breathe in the aroma of a lonely bed. I brave indifference, aided by the allure of your vulnerability. You panic like a child in a dark room, left alone with a fantastic monster under his bed. I pluck you up and hold you to my brotherly chest, caressing your frowns away. My chest expands to house the triumph of taming the devious stallion. I grasp you in a sickly sweet embrace. My tentacles coil around you in a possessive knot. You mimic my act and I believe you reciprocate. We build a cocoon with the fragile silk of imagined sanctuary, a delusional sense of power and invincibility in each other’s arm. All worries fall like shooting stars. I am lulled into a state of bliss, my hunger satiated, like a python after a huge meal. My inertia renders my thoughts impotent. I slowly sink in your quagmire, ignoring the odour of deception swirling around me. When I am neck deep in the bubbling cauldron, realization dawns like the last breath before death; you have led me through this dance, a sacrificial goat to be beheaded at the altar of love. I go under and am engulfed in you. I disintegrate in your cruel hands and experience a perverse pleasure. I had set out as a predator and ended up being the prey.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Sphinx


9.7x13.7 inches; Pen drawing on paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)

Enigma
Are you?
Secrets play like dew
On lotus leaves,
Your riddled spirit
Mercurial but true.

Is it your will?
A charade,
To keep us in shade,
Lest we break
Your fragile heart,
Vulnerable but afraid?

Treacherous
They say,
Is your way,
Like a mirage
Igniting passions
Leading lives astray.

Is it your will?
Devising lame
And misleading game?
A trial of faith,
For the lovelorn souls
To drown in shame?

Merciless
To behold,
Is your heart so cold?
A sharp dead stone
None dare melt,
Not even boldest of bold.

Is it your will?
Being cruel,
Using malice as fuel?
Haunting with dread
Of torture and heartache,
While your own self, you duel?

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Phoenix


9.7x13.7 inches; Pen drawing on paper with water color wash (Click on image to enlarge)
SOLD. In private collection

Your nest is your pyre.
On a bed of myrrh,
Strewn with ageless suffering
The sepia Cinnamon twigs
Form a fence of memories,
Fading…
Entwined with the Spikenard,
Gathered from the lost Eden
Of love and yearning,
You breathe your last…
Igniting the inferno,
Devouring the past.
The purging flames grow
Into unmarked wings,
An unbroken heart
And you are born anew
From the ashes of desire.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Monday, October 31, 2011

Weed


11.7x15.7 inches; Pen drawing on  paper (Click on image to enlarge)

I give you an inch
You take the entire limb…
Weighing down my shoulder,
Playing with my head,
Gripping my neck
Smothering me…
Sinking your roots
Deep within my chest.
My heart breaks
Under pressure.
Your unrelenting hunger
Grows in my belly,
Pulling me
Towards gravity.
You have my balls
In your tight fist,
My legs bound
And no ground
Beneath my feet.
You strike me blind,
Licking my words away
You drink with relish
At the stream of tears
And sap my will to rebel.
You usurp me
And yet
You grow on me.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Bonsai





Mixed media on wall. Created for the cross media artists workshop 'Shunyosthan' organized by Shunyosthan Artists Collective, inspired by the concept of 'Blank Space' at Studio 21, Kolkata, India (Click on images to enlarge)

Thoughts grow crippled
Mangled and distorted
Confined
Like the tears
Never shed
Like the smile
Worn and faded.

It becomes thorny
Trying to make peace
With honest reality
Claustrophobic
With fear
In the labyrinth of
Control and desire.

Seeking to escape
Through the cracks
Spreading midget limbs
Like moss on a wall
Crowding
For the dreams so
False and liberating.

Penetrating through
Sanity and insanity
Through the tenses
In time
Memories stare blind
Fastened windows of
Heart and mind.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Prey


20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)

Watching
From afar
Perched
On bony thrones
Tangled, thorny, and
Riddled with worms
Of odium and panic
If we dare rebel
Throw stones.

Waiting
In shadows
Wishing
For us to coil up
Belch, choke and
Breathe our last
Decomposed by plague
Penetrated by a bullet
Cut by a blade.

Hovering
High above
Breathing
Down our neck
Pushing, shoving and
Raping us with our
Crippled religious sentiments
Shameless war mongering
Corrupt morality.

Digging
In our talons
Tearing
At our mind
Dead, senseless and
Erupting with putrid sores
From myriad stigmas
Inflicted abuse
Mutilated lives.


Longing
For liberation,
Manipulating
The delicate dictates
Good, bad and
Forever judgmental
Of what we desire,
We are the tyrant,
We are the prey.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal