It rained hard in the night, the skies torn wide,
I woke to my bed adrift by the moon’s tide,
The whole city submerged, swallowed entire,
by ocean below and heaven’s blue fire,
As above, so below, the ancient refrain,
Mumbai returned to the sea from where it came
Once Dwarka stood golden beneath Krishna’s eye,
its seven-tiered towers reaching the sky,
The sea gave it glory, the sea took it back,
One night, the waves rose and left only black,
they say if you dive where even the fishermen fear,
You’ll hear the old city, its bells, crystal clear
I blink and see Dwarka, its spires below,
I blink and see Mumbai in the monsoon’s hold,
one city of gods, one city of men,
both swallowed, both singing, both lost and then
darkness, just darkness, the water, the weight,
I float on my bed, and I wait, and I wait
NaPoWriMo Day 18 – Today, we don’t challenge you to write all of a long, dramatic, narrative poem, but we invite you to try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of one. Include rhyme, include unlikely and dramatic scenes (maybe a poem about a bank robbery! Or an avalanche! Or Roman gladiators! Or an enormous ball held by mermaids, where there is an undercurrent (hee) of palace intrigue!) Basically, a poem with the plot of an opera (evil twins! Egyptian tombs! Star-crossed lovers! Tigers for no apparent reason!)
Smoke words every day. 
3 responses to “[583] The Twin Cities And Their Doom”
This is a stunning, elegiac poem—haunting in its imagery and seamless in its movement between myth and modernity. The way you draw a line from submerged Dwarka to monsoon-drowned Mumbai gives the piece a timeless, almost prophetic weight. Lines like “by ocean below and heaven’s blue fire” and “both swallowed, both singing, both lost” are particularly gorgeous. The quiet, resigned ending—“I float on my bed, and I wait, and I wait”—lingers like a held breath. A deeply atmospheric and moving read.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear SRIKANTH,
I have just submitted a comment for Rahul about 35 minutes ago, and now I am submitting another one as a reply to your excellent comment. How very perceptive and eloquent you have been in your feedback for Rahul’s latest poem entitled “The Twin Cities And Their Doom“! Thank you. May you enjoy a lovely Sunday!
Rahul, I would like to add that grammatically speaking, the last word of the third line in the first stanza of your poem needs to be an adverb, namely, “entirely”. The use of “entire” as an adverb, rather than “entirely”, is one of those specific cases of a word that is rarely used in this way, as it sounds “old fashioned”, odd or even ungrammatical. “Entire” is primarily an adjective (such as “the entire day”) and cannot typically act as an adverb; the adverb form is “entirely”. Although “entire” can occasionally function as an object complement meaning “whole” (such as “He swallowed it entire”), it is not used as a standard adverb. Simply put, in some specific, older or poetic contexts, it might follow a verb to describe the object, but “entirely” is the correct adverb in modern English. In any case, there is the possibility of changing the fourth line to rhyme with “entirely”, should you choose to do so.
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
LikeLike
Dear Rahul,
I was smiling (with a wide grin) as soon as I perused your latest poem entitled “The Twin Cities And Their Doom“, as I can see that you have been putting the rhyming scheme AABBCC to good use. On the whole, your rhyming is very good, though you can improve it by noticing that “refrain” and “came” as well as “below” and “hold” do not rhyme perfectly.
At the end of your poem, you have thrown me a surprise: not only do weight and wait rhyme perfectly, they are homophones, meaning that they are pronounced identically despite having different spellings and meanings. Well done!
Since I am busy with some errands, I have not had time to investigate your syllabic scheme.
Have you started converting your excellent poem entitled “The Spectacle of Digital Society”?
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
LikeLike