Lost
by
Jayant Mahapatra
(Summary)
In
this poem, Jayant Mahapatra talks about the feelings of a lover, which arise
during the act of sex. He also studies the physical contacts of two lovers and
he is aware of the consequences of the regular act of love making.
In
the opening lines of the poem ‘Lost’ the poet talks about his partner that can
be recognized by him from a distance. He says that even in a dim light of the
room he can recognize her because she had been with him for a long time. The
poet wants to know the problems of human relationship and also of love and sex.
He says that he wants to know the pain and pleasure felt by his partner during
the love making. He is ea-ger to know the secrets of the act of sex.
Jayant
Mahapatra, in this love poem, watches the body of his partner carefully which
is getting rid off the burden of the season. Her body is spread out under the
poet’s breath. The poet is one of the partners but his thoughts are going in
vivid directions –
“going
nowhere”.
The
poet gently touches the body of his partner and while doing so he feels, that
the dreams of his past life are being fulfilled. He goes down in his memory and
feels pleasure. He does not know whether the present physical or the pleasure
of his memory shuts his eyes quietly.
The
poet further advances the physical relationship between two lovers and says
that in this relationship there comes a stage when these contacts become dull
and boring because of familiarity and routine. When the poet finds his
partner’s body shrinking, he loses faith in her, just as a child loses faith
when some de-fect occurs in his mechanical toy. The poet does not know the
consequences of this type of relationship. In the last two lines of the poem,
he, with the help of a simile, says that in the darkness of the room he finds
that his watch has been misplaced. He does not know where he was at the time
when he lost it.
The
poem ‘Lost’ is written in a free verse form and does not have any regular
rhyming and rhythm pattern. The poet was greatly influenced by T.S. Eliot and
his poems are also said to be in stream of conscious-ness. The poet gives a
kind of force to his poem by asking a question in the last line of his poem.
This po-em has symbolic importance too and has a current of love and sex in it.
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