Brishma's Bed of Arrows

It seems you practiced asceticism:

   stood in one toe in the snow

   for seven and ten years

  to learn the secret of my death.

Then there, one day, you struck me

With your hundred thousand arrows

In such full accuracy,

No space in my body

Thicker than two inches

Was not pierced;

I fell from where I stood,

Lying fully supported by

The sharp-edged shafts, with

No part of my body touching the earth--

 

And, I remain lying,

Alive but dead.

 

 

Reviews

[David Scott]

A poem of epic meaning. So sad...
Is there any escape? There must be.
Interesting write.

[An owl on the moon]

So filled with painful imagery, the ancient thoughts woven with fresh threads. How powerful the vision and how deep the path of life and death and longing.

[nicolo]

Nice. It felt like reading Rilke's works too. I was brought back to time while reading this.

[KAin]

Oh wow... This is the first poem I read of yours and I'm blown away.
I love epic poetry and I think you did justice to the Mahabharata. My focus has been on Japanese and Norse Myth, but I think I may give this one a read once again.
I read once that love and religion is often tied, intricately, to pain and death. We must often suffer for things we give our hearts to, and to understand the difference between 'giving your life' and 'giving up your life'. Both choices mean a certain degree of pain and sacrifice, but the measure is found in the difference of love.
I'm looking forward to reading more.

[Belle]

I believe we are on the same discipline. Wow! Just wow, seriously! I am so glad to have you here. Will be right back for your poem soon. I wish our final exams is not on Sat so I can stay longer and talk about this.

[KAin]

Classics and English Literature - it was always my intention to be as productive as unproductively as I possibly can be. Well, there's always next week! Good luck with those exams - I'm sure you'll do fine!

[Tate Morgan]

I do not know this myth However even with blades enough of them can support any weight without damaging it Love you Belle Princess of the Polynesian isles

[Mark Heathcote]

Fascinating poem I like it a lot: Good work!

[Sami Khalil]

An epic poem with epic dimensions of the soul. A lethargic situations that turn into cathartic ones in the end in the victory over death and the elements of injustices...I commend you on this great write...:)

[Dhaye]

I have already encountered that epic (Mahabharata) during my college days but now I can only remember few things about Brishma and his death.

Here in this poem, I can feel that the speaker is satirically speaking about someone's brilliance in knowing how to defeat him/her. He's/She's been suffering from the start, and until the end (in his/her death), it is still painful. Imagine such body lying...not truly lying on the ground but on the bed of arrows.

the last line is powerful. In real life situation, when we encounter so much pain, we consider ourselves as dead already.

[sayed Mudasir Ali]

Nice imagery and well done.

[Horizon K.]

I have only read small parts of the mahabharata, as pointed by other inspirations, but it is indeed beautiful in the deep meanings it holds of humanity. This poem of your Belle, is beautiful and I feel, has many layers of meaning that will come in tides as we shift in our moods and hence the way it is read... For me today, what I see is these hundred thousand arrows, as they pierce precisely, is enlightenment, a final instant of realization... however this truth is so painful that it is like a death in itself, something real or unreal was lost for this, and yet we do not die from it...