Awakenings in the
Dark World
(To
My brothers and
sisters—
Md. Shahidul Islam
Md. Shaifur Rahman
Mst. Sherin Begum
Md. Shafikul Islam
Mst. Rikta Begum
Md. Salim Mia
Mst. Nasrin Akter)
Yet Another
Under this sky there is yet another
one
that is variably coloured and placed
closer.
You just couldn’t get lost in its
moon and stars;
that is why its sweet songs are
played somewhere else.
Excluding all seas there is yet
another one
which overflows when it cries.
You just swam in the water of all
seas
but didn’t know they were full to the
brim with its water.
Close to this land there is yet
another one
where harvest grows, and flowers
blossom.
You just didn’t farm flowers as you
wish;
so you went on blundering with all
its sun and rain.
Across the
Body of the Night Catching Fire in her Blood
Across the body of
the night
that catches fire
in her blood
there will be no
more cold rainfall—
and she knows it.
In the hot wind of
the burnt mind,
there will blow in
more and more fire
only in the flickering
flames.
Her soul then will
rush to and fro
as ants are washed
away by flood;
yet she will find
no safe haven
anywhere just to
place her soul.
At this hour who
will look for her
and take her closer
to his breast
with the hands
extended to her
so as to rouse her
expectations?
It appears to her
the darkness
that is ignited in
despair
is much more
unendurable
than her death
even.
Let the whole world
know it—
not any heart ever
longs
to be lighted in
the heated light
of the burning
season.
So the heart of the
night values
her darkness above
such a light.
The Engrossed Body
of the Undressed Night
Look at the engrossed body of the undressed
night
how the gentle wind touches the
ice-heart,
and how it climbs the butter-tender
domes
and how two desires meet up at their
peaks.
And when the fragrance of granite
becomes strong,
the spoiled heart forgets its
sorrowfulness
and longs to be spoiled in more
fragrance.
In this state of adequate happiness
it seems to be immersed and die.
Such a death rouses another thirst
in the parched breast of the earth.
However much the two desires are met
at their peaks,
the trap of god has never been known
to have failed;
this ascent and descent go on
with showers of sparks life-long.
They just stop once for all
when shrouded in white dress
and numbed by powerlessness.
Beyond the Scene
The life that roams about beyond the
scene,
beyond the limitless bank— in the
dark
lays eggs and in the womb of the
night brags
to see the baby of the golden age;
the life that puts aside days and
adores
or still prays for nights, is
uncaught lifelong,
a bait of cheats, a colourful cover—
which holds the cosmic darkness, the
black hole.
It’s magic from the scene for the
unseen.
The greed for unseen life snatches
the youth
offered in cash in the grove of
honey;
the lovers of the city just come
back
with naked hands and sink into the
dark
in the unbearable and painful nook.
Then that life makes no difference
with that
which goes on with worshiping the
darkness.
Such a life is for all time a
blossom
unsmelt, untasted and pale in
neglect
before it gets withered eternally,
a bath in the puddle of the vast sea
despite its having a pool of water.
Then who is this discolored life
lent to
and which rule is laid down to
suffocate
and pulverize it between the
grinders?
Pleasure-fasting
There is no room left for the ruined
body
in our family and our society;
everyone in society longs to live
in possession of the virtuous body
where there is no worth of the
ruined body.
Yet there is overdoing with the
ruined mind
with which the invalid society now
has unceasing intercourse with no
qualms.
But the ruined body bears no worth
to man;
yet it is much better than the
ruined mind
in its giving of the silent pleasure,
in the songs of all the hearts
pressed and ground
by society, in the flood of sorrow
that is sunk at its overflowing bank
while the ruined mind remains only
busy
hurting, is set to break mosques and
temples,
and to trample over the gardenia
that is come into bud with much
effort.
There is leftover odor smeared over
the malnourished body— and it
disturbs
the nose of society that is patched
up,
but the malnourished mind nourishes
it
and does vaunt in the fashion of
values.
Sickness never spares this
pleasure-fasting
society anyhow where it does rule,
and where even the moonlight is a
curse—
virtue lives at its feet and sin on
heads.
For the Golden Sun
The night is pregnant with darkness
just to smell the fragrance of
light.
One day she embraced the sun’s
breast
and was happy for that moment.
She was not her when her body
trembled and was hot in petals
of heart— when the sun went away
to the summer solstice
in the stillness of the late
afternoon
and in the bashful solitude,
far away from the multitude
she kissed his eyelids at the bend
of the farthest horizon.
Now she is tired of carrying
the embryo of that pleasure;
so the moments of waiting play
as constant ding-dongs in her
breast,
in her visage and in her eyes
in the wrapper of the new pains.
Yet in the beckoning of light
beyond this agony again
her heart just becomes pacified.
In the coming dawn she will bear
the new golden sun from her womb
during this burning season.
The Deer Live in
Vain
This world doesn’t hold always good
time for deer;
the deer live in vain for greed of
green grass
that gives their body healthy
nourishment
and makes a heady aroma of it
and exerts a pull on the deadly
smell
of the hostile tiger like a magnet.
They aren’t tiger-charmers but easy
prey.
They’ve no inhuman weapons like
humans;
they’ve no fatty, slow-working,
secret tools
that can avenge their enemies like
beef,
or no fish bones like chital
that can sting
and pinch the throat of man after
its death.
Yet the deer live in vain thinking
their life
as invaluable as anything.
They just get trapped in mantis deception
of leaves for all time— and in the
cover
of deception— Death draws in tiny
tints
the dotted spots all over their
body.
Yet their desire to live is undying
and eternal— however frivolous
their life is in the world,
or poisonous in a twinkling.
The deer make the scenes of the
world pretty
and raise the spirits in all its
forests;
everyone lives on the borrowed
fragrance
of their burnt hearts. Yet the deer
for themselves
live in vain. For the alluring
grasses
they sell well their own life gratis
to death.
So the deer live in vain;
the deer still have a dance in vain
to the steps, tempos and crescendos
of green.
Waiting
As the earth moves round the sun all
day long
and at last goes for an assignation
holding the outstretched hand of the
twilight,
and finds out that her heart is
still beating;
as she is impatient over again
in the night to meet the dawn
stealthily
before all the lives of the world
wake up,
so we are passionate and impatient
all of the days and nights of our
whole life
only to embrace the darkness in
light
and the light in darkness in the
desire
like gravity force of the universe.
If that desire is abruptly eclipsed,
all the hopes are covered with deep
dark clouds,
we acquiesce in pangs of that
eclipse
tucking our soul into the sludge of
life
with patience of the busy
pond-heron.
We’ll meet again at the end of darkness
that splits open out of the breast
of dawn.
Then we’ll only talk in a long
silence
when the Jamuna of our halting words
that are suspended so far in our
life,
merely merges into the estuary;
and then all the currents of our
feelings
will do build up a foam-covered
ocean
where we can spend at least some of
our time
swimming and diving, jumping and plunging
in watery happiness— we’ll divest
of airy, acrid touch and land-grown
pain.
Like the earth, we still move about
and wait.
Opium Addict
Our ancestors who took opium
given by others, and gave up
their own narcotics for the sake
of existence or mirage-greed
that made them trade over again,
look back only and feel the light
of moving as will o’ the wisp;
and that drunkenness still makes you
move against from top to bottom
and makes itself a scale for you
to gauge all men in your values
that are born-blind, primal and
false.
You still look for medication
for all troubles in that opium,
and we living in the margin
are thrown away then to the edge—
farthest— sometimes to the dustbin.
That time is perhaps yet to come
for people living on the edge
when all the power of the centre
budges to the fists of their hands,
when they can live in their own
time.
So the plowing of the good time
this time is made in the hard times
and the fertile land is just proved
to be infertile, sterile one.
Yet you don’t want to accept it—
the seeds with insects never yield
the bumper crops; but in the soil
of gold-yielding alluvial plains
you’re still sowing the opium seeds.
The Whirlwind
In the whirlwind does fly the heated
sand
of life when the wind lets out a
long sigh;
but its desire was to fly as a bird
or as a butterfly from tree to tree,
from flower to flower. But alas!
When it flies off,
it stumbles again on the heated
sand—
on the sand emerged from spending
its life
and the defiant desire impedes only
the tempo and pace of the rest of
life.
Thus some fate or other just comes
away
and fulfills the desire of flying
off.
In the heated puzzle of the bellows
even an iron-life just begins to
melt
like the ice at the hands of the
blacksmith;
life has known it spending a whole
life
melting, rotting and being penniless
in the very bazaar of life and
world.
And an investment can only be made
with such a life in being of others
whose bodies consume the higher
interest
at the compound rate from bones and
marrows
of that life and accumulate
fat-rolls.
The Myth of
Hermaphrodite
You abuse me and taunt me
and give a wry smile
calling me ‘eunuch’.
For you don’t know
who I am and why I am so.
Listen then! ‘When I was alone
on earth thousands of years ago
I did not like it.
But I had no partner to love
and procreate like yours;
but I had both organs as the
self-contained
that I rubbed one winter night
like an earth-worm to feel warm.
Later someday when the earth
completed
its rotation once,
I felt my belly growing up
and one day felt labor,
and with the big bang
my little twins came out on earth.
It went on and on
for some generations.
Again by chance
kids as you deformed are
began to be born;
later this stream went on
which you boast of now.
So you say who is to be taunted and
laughed at.
Whatever I have in use or not
Is the vestige of what I had.’
Death has No Caste
Death has no caste; life has many—
lofty and low levels, colours,
various tastes, various smells,
alleys,
nooks and corners— and the roads
rough.
He who walks along the darkness
where lies his crime? All the
desires
of the deprived run out serving.
The moon enriched with the riches
of others are fully joyous—
the amazed stars only whisper.
The trees that bear flowers are not
theirs if they are not mature.
So death has no caste— whether it’s
premature or immature death,
whether mature or watery—
everywhere is denial, assault—
everything is forms, vogues of life.
Death is a one-coloured, lonely,
friendless tool, a host in oneself.
All the colours, all the flavours,
all grand arrangements of the life
are blasé to it in a flash;
yet festive mood of work of life
does never come to a finish.
Here it wins, here lies its singing;
So death seems to be gray and pale
to the all-around forms of life.
Checkmate
When the illusive gap is plugged up
between life and death,
in the sudden drop of the scenes—
all powerful preparedness
disappears forever— as if throwing
the cold water
in the blazing bonfire.
This truth of the moment still
remains so much true as if
all the grand arrangements of life
were overwhelmed to it
in a second.
Yet bonfire burns— it longs for
burning everlastingly
by making all the
timber-kindling-straw-diesel its fuel,
even by sacrificing itself in the
other fire
or else by swallowing up the other
fire fearfully.
It longs to burn many more days than
the star in the sky
burning for million years more than
other luminaries.
But alas! Behind the curtain in unpromising
time
who seems to stand at ease and write
graffiti on the wall
of some life or other, and as per
the direction wall
which compliant slaves equip
themselves to obey it always
with the cold water in their hands?
Which god orders the pawns
of all lives in the chessboard of
the world and still goes on
playing the game as he wishes? And
he makes the ill rule
his rule for some reason or other,
and rolls down laughing
for all the helpless checkmates of
the world!
The Cry of
Dove-hearts
Our dove-heart is extinct like dudhraj
birds
where lives now a sense of hybridism.
It is, as it were, the cultivation
of eucalyptus in the pitraj
land.
Humanity is today a species
that comes to be endangered like doel
birds
and is found only in pages of books
and painted as a picture here and
there
or a coin of Goura, Pundra
period
or else that of the Ashoka regime
lost forever or lain in ceaseless
sleep
in some museum— so it bears no value
of its own except historical one.
Whether it’s humanity or dove-heart,
both now seem a pillar-less asylum
of the invalid to power and money,
a pretension to the heavy monsoon
in the blistered land of the
worthless mind.
Those who’re crushed in the sick
race of the world
those who live in their huts in
seclusion
those whose hearts are burdened with
refined sense
those whose fathomless mind is a
river
where endless streams of perturbed
pains still flow,
stand as a shelter in their hearts
alone
for them without any prop or support
like a single star gazing from afar,
like a statue without life or
ideals.
One Day This Life
One day this life will merge into
air silently
in the sudden solar eclipse
in the invitation of twilight
in the wave-less ocean, in the still
desert.
No noise will that time sound
melodious or tedious.
No pain will burn the heart;
no love will wet the mind.
Perhaps a tear or two will shed
to ruminate the memory of that life
in a solitary corner of the earth
or the tears will dry in the eyes.
In an idle noon on the sands of the
Jamuna
perhaps some memory-vorous, lone
swan
will be engrossed in feasting on his
memories
or hear some saddened music
in the voice of the dove, in the
first pain of Papia.
The lost life still seems to be an
absconding prisoner
that borrowed the invaluable life
from an unknown usurper.
So before paying it back,
it is now the accused to be hanged.
The Wild Duck in
Pain
The wild duck in pain flaps his
wings in deep water
and the wind comes to kiss his mild
body nonstop
when he bobs up with soft catkin
scents on his beaks.
Yet the eyes of the hunter just aim
at his breast
for which drunkenness? Deep darkness
descends around,
the egrets fly away responding to
their flock;
the magical dew fallen on the sands
beckons
being at the distance of a life. At
that time
the pain-puzzled deaf wild duck
fumbles only for
the resonance of his own wings
desperately.
It goes in vain— the cry of the
night goes in vain
to the ears of the hunter; in the
breeze of dawn
perhaps the fragrance of his life
will drift no more.
And in the daylight there will not
any more flash
all pain and joy of the feathers
splashing water.
A memory of unknown time seems to
come at last
and asks: where and when have you
seen such a darkness?
All the dark nights of the earth
gathered together
seem nothing to it— no darkness
since earth was born.
The world’s pain seems to touch the
body of last pain
in defeat and is floored at its feet
pale-faced.
At the night’s first hour, the
hunter pulls his trigger;
then the heat of the body of the
duck just hides
wholly in the womb of the night in a
moment
and all his pain falls along with
his last feather.
Women
Women! You are still ornaments
decking only the rooms, door-sills
and beds, wearing blisters in hands
and dreams falling flat on your face
within the boundary of henna
before you have flown far away.
You have measured life with tiaras.
You couldn’t be so much of humans
as of women— remained women.
You’ve mixed your desires with
others’,
in the confined room of the males.
Why didn’t you give up the nature
of the gold creepers in the pride
of self-reliance, identity?
You are still moving like a top
around the circle made by men
in its beckoning of pleasure.
You couldn’t be the tools in your
life
to change yourselves in society;
you became the tools for others.
But you need not be any arms,
women! Just be your tools to change
yourselves, to go beyond yourselves.
One or two of you have done this,
kissed the peak of the Himalayas,
touched the summits of some others.
But this can alter nothing much.
Change yourselves this time to
change all
so that in the grief of rulers
Ashoka faints at Kalinga,
so that with one blow of your breath
the venomous snakes tuck their life
into the holes and ever flee,
so that the primeval woman
can regain her vanished glory
with your efforts and your movement.
Be a pillar for your leaning,
you also have limbs like the males.
As darkness cannot bear the light,
you cannot bear self-reliance too.
Yet just draw the light in darkness—
be lighted just once, there won’t be
darkness that you’ve thought as your
fate.
But you should know— like the
conquered
you have no glowing history too.
So you make your history this time.
To arouse you, came Rokeya,
Sufia Kamal, that Khona,
Nawab Faizunnessa, also
Jahanara Imam this time
in nooks and corners of Bangla.
But you did not respond to them.
You are still tied to the shackles
of intoxication of yours.
You could not see any beauty
of the earth, not enquire after
any stars; so many events
are happening every moment
that do not echo in your hearts
in jingled tunes, tempos and beats.
You just made a ruined nest in pain
with a whole life squandering.
Reviving the Ruined
O Rain! You drenched much the dry
land,
fields, meadows, forests, wilderness
overflowed the ponds, the rivers,
the canals, the fens, the wetlands
for thousand years— sometimes freely
sometimes on the pretext of freaks.
Drench my heart this time as you did
my forefathers to senseless joy,
gave leisure to compose sad songs
for the absence of their dear ones,
to wash away their deep sorrow
to sing in their stentorian voice
Bhatiali, Bhawaiya music
and so many great rainy songs
while riding the raft pushed in
floods
or at great adda of full
noon.
Drench my mind-desert just like
this,
I don’t care about my body.
If you come down, I’ll get— leisure,
freedom from urban rattling
tiredness,
fertile laziness. I’ll glean
beauties
of life only. My heart has dried
much earlier— but lived as pieces
on a tattered sheet of the world.
Drench me in the sodden leisure.
If my body lives just like this,
my heart will be very short-lived.
And dead heart has nothing to give;
it pulls and drags the rest of life.
Those who can Give
Much More
Those who can give much more on
earth,
lay down aprons of joy in peace,
give an address in the pure heart
of Nidhubon to be drunk up,
reap harvests in the arid land
with the agro-facts like Khona’s,
be successful well like the sun
in the gracious triumph of last
tricks of war
with wailings in the breast of
millions
and with the last droplet of their
own blood
in hand as a single light in
darkness;
why do they sit quietly in a
distance
too far beyond the scenes of the
known world?
Why do they hide themselves in a
dense pique?
And those who only think that pique
to be a feigning of wisdom
clothed in inability,
just don’t know how the present
scenes
that rouse pain in the future womb
also play tunes on strings of time—
in the silence of noonday hour,
in the tone of jingling anklets;
burning in pain from side to side at
night,
at all the work, at the hearts of
the past
around the marrows with the bones
crackling
they just burn and burn and make a
cinder.
In Quest of Wild
Happiness
At the end of the nightlong war
comes a shrivelling dawn
shouldering merely a drop of
happiness, her image
sitting tight in the ravaged field
from far to much farther—
too far— to the hundred more fields;
her whole body remains
a thirsty mouth like a dry leaf. A
whole cubic heart of pain
is born just as seeds of pomegranate
are stored in a whole.
The rest of the day across the
grassy field when the sky
is more impudent with someone else,
the bad company
of love forfeits the solitude of
grass. Then no tapping
of fingers falls on her lips like
the second phase of the moon;
On her mahua eyelids shower
no kisses in crazy glee.
This time her eyes picture the
relief hanging in the tie
of a noose after so many years; and
then someone seems
to inaugurate the workshop of
sadness in the town
of heart. At that time a fire-beaked
bird comes with love of hell,
and without taking her on his wings
nips her entire heart
and throws in the parched
crematorium unseen so far
as if to burn and enrich the
ash-ground for the last time.
But how many days he’s peeped into
the yard of her mind!
How much he’s been besotted with the
drained delight in her!
How often he has left her alone with
the mere fragrance
of shefali after making them
fall in the morning
in quest of wild happiness in the
missing, cruel forests!
On the Edge of
Thirty-Four Years
On the edge of thirty-four years
breaking the trance of the hermit,
you still came to the lap of the
refused forest.
You shed suddenly on the awakened
mind
left to rot like the fibre of jute
giving up its body
to the lap of the silent forest on
the edge of thirty-four years.
In the hope of fibre, the heart
remained cut off from its breast.
For its stink so many people have
often vituperated
secretly or openly.
As you came today at last, O my
poesy!
Why so hurry? As long as the breath
flies the dust,
stay here to trace the destination
of the unseen beauty
in various ways to the earth in the
eyes of the hermit.
The world needs you so much today
to light all the ravaged, ragged
hearts
in bright sparks amid all grayness.
As you were not here, all the
animals still lived
as beasts on the breast of earth.
If they happen to meet any man,
they don’t think they can see a man
of the earth,
who is not easily available— so
easily
even after ransacking anywhere in
the universe.
They are blessed only with eating
like animals
dipping their noses in the grassy
happiness.
As you came, just stay for at least
thirty-four years
on the edge of thirty-four years—
by the time you will make the earth
rotate thirty-four times.
Those who have Only
Clung around the Craze
Those who have only clung around the
craze,
dressed smartly in the fashionable
clothes
but afforded not a single moment
to see with their own eyes pains of
the age,
have perhaps got the things in
profusion
but could not enjoy the endless at
all.
So their soulless life lives like
the jiol post.
Communion with the endless doesn’t
stir them.
With the peel-deep happiness and
pleasure
of the unclothed civilization
they have only been enchanted lifelong—
those who are peel-vorous,
pleasure-thirsty.
But the peel envelops only the seed
of the real and enraptured happiness.
The pith of civilization doesn’t lie
outside; it lies in the meditation,
in farming the deep field of life
and world.
So those who have had a taste of the
pith
have the only right to rule for ages
those who have suffered from fads
and crazes
and have been affected with
delirium.
Yet the delirious are lords in
fashion
toeing the line and ruling
pith-eaters.
The peel rules the world; the pith
does not rule.
And so its broad breast is not
embraced yet
by the so far absconding happiness.
In the Glamorous
Infatuation with the Estuary
O dear! Let the savings made so far
for love
not go in vain by any means this
time.
I agree to invest all my capital;
so let not this time go in vain.
Let all my lifespan be over for the
moment
if it is over anyhow.
Yet let not such time go in vain, my
dear!
I also agree to lose to your love.
Let one say whatever they want to in
the name of love.
I just know
that love means losing to the person
of love
or losing to someone else for him or
her.
So love in loss shines brightly,
if it doesn’t, it’s for the pride of
winning.
You just know, dear,
all the elixir of life is stored in
the estuary of love
flowing down and oozing from the
canal of time
in the glamorous infatuation,
in the burning secrecy
across the body of time.
Let’s revel there in our diving and
swimming
and regain the lost time of life
with the propitious time.
It’s not the time to be as stupid as
apathetic.
Why are your lips still filled up
with disgust
to quench the parched thirst?
When You or the
World
When
you or the world keeps turning down me,
When
life denies my happiness deadly,
I
enjoy my melancholy with songs
and
wallow in silent sorrow that longs
to
suck all my pains like sponge,
to
take me to the sea of trance to plunge
and
lift me from the known to the unknown.
My
sorrow then melts into tune alone
with
no form like an Indian classic
and
makes me a raga that flies birdlike.
I
have a musical flight in the sky
sometimes
hovering, sometimes soaring high;
no
pangs or sorrow can touch me that time
I
am above everything in my prime.
O
Music! Let me live like this for life
whether
it is sorrow, sadness or strife.
For
nothing can melt my melancholy
as
you do boozily, fiercely, freshly.
Awakenings in the
Dark World
The aged moon has grabbed so many
days of the fireflies
and making their hearts sink stayed
so far for many days.
The fireflies have still given light
in the deep darkness.
It has never known after all these
days there is a day
that only ignites all the time the
rest of the days
engrossed like a dream and in the
naked eyes like imagination.
The dance of the dazzling light
drifts in the eyes of dreamers,
in the wings of the fireflies.
Before dreaming, one has to burn;
the dreams before burning are never
dreams.
Burning only, the dreams talk in
melodious music
to man living on earth.
Before it, the aged moon whets our
days
on the stones like those of fireflies—
inserts a sword across the throat of
all arrangements
in uselessness if necessary in the
name of sacrifice.
The need of today sheds all the
dreams tomorrow.
So the fireflies shine today in the
hopes and dreams of tomorrow
and the rats or mice live only today
exhausting all their power.
No day of tomorrow ever heralds the
beginning of their day;
it just disappears forever in the
abyss of the night.
Such a Time it is
Now
Such a time it is now—
the horse licks the pubic hair of
the dog;
the dog licks the horse-shoe
and all the rest are just a herd of
sheep.
A fox lets out a yelp;
the rest of them form groups
and sing in the same tune—
how far are all the hens?
Crows give a caw—
empty Dhaka;
let’s pull with beaks
all stupid beasts.
In the kingdom of flies and ticks,
all the insects, creepy-crawlies
just reign over in insolence.
And humans are so astonished.
Leeches have come back too.
But it’s not any fun.
Out of water they’ve come
to the dry land of man
and started sucking blood.
Yet the Stars Fall
Stars fall one by one and leave the
ashes of pain
in the breast of the dust-covered
earth.
They had been shining for millions
of years
and spreading light in the universe;
those eyes where that blue light has
not reached yet
will never perceive the pain.
The stars have still given light
making themselves impoverished and
destitute
for the eyes of the dumb and the
dull.
Such stars still fall.
Yet one day like the sun
the stars were eclipsed
in the black shadow of the moon;
men on earth inculcated this only
into their mind with great pleasure,
with the rhythm of perfidy
and let the stigma be known
here and there, this corner and that
corner.
And forgot all the loans,
all the pleasure borrowed in their
living from the stars.
Such ungrateful men too are there!
It’s Well That I
Still Live
Don’t ask me how I am.
It’s well that I still live.
Amid the dusty world, in quest of
great beauty
I still go on endless;
it is well.
In the scratches of thorns across
the whole body
pain raises my family well.
It’s well that I still live.
Don’t ask me how I am.
Endless wailings each day disconcert
all my heart—
peace does remain missing.
Yet it’s well that I live.
Now each and every room is full of
restrictions;
there’s no trace of freedom.
It’s well that with this I still
live.
Don’t ask me how I am.
Death rules every moment of life
and who knows when it will issue
decree!
It’s well that I still live.
On the way of moving I just have a
narrow escape,
and then remains only its trace.
It’s well that I still live.
Don’t ask me how I am.
Ram, Rahim, John now live in my
memory alone;
they’ve gone to the unknown land.
Yet it’s well that I live.
The few closer people I had live now
so far;
my mind bears pangs and pain.
Yet it’s well that I live.
Yet let them live some more time who
still do
Yet let Time play some more music on
their heart-strings.
Let some more happiness and sorrow
make them swing;
let some more pleasure and pain stir
waves in them, O forgetful!
There are so many wailings, so many
denials, so many pains;
yet let there be some more talks for
some more time
and tales of life be written with
some more colours of dreams.
Let’s creep up as we wish for some
more time, O light-creepers!
The Plates of Lotus
Leaves
A couple of plates of lotus leaves
are gazing
as if they were sparks of sunlight full
of fire
and the white cloud lies in wait all
alone
fixing its bright look on the plates
floating alone in a pond at noon
and stretching their body on deep
blue water
by borrowing the cunningness of bright
sunlight
some fading light at one side hides the
rest of the lotus plates
then whose infatuation with delicacies
calls for such an invitation?
The clouds seem to be different
assassins nowadays
or play too much the game of hide
and seek
or else for whom this decking shines
why is he still away, beyond the
scene?
Just to Extend
Myself
How much more to diminish my life
your hearts will be pleased?
Don’t diminish me any more!
You know diminution causes
explosion.
Though I’m like grass,
I’ve desires boundless and
ceaseless;
my back is not this time
within the diminution limit—
this time my heart is pasted
to the wall like a poster.
Just let me be free this time like a
rocket.
Don’t confine me to your gravity any
more.
Don’t think that my life is made up
of your dreams and desires
or I’m your obedient slave as per
your desire,
as I’ve taken shelter in the corner
of your house
like a house-sparrow.
Something seems not to match
somewhere!
Yet as a batsman keeps waiting—
sometimes lifelong to match between
the bat and the ball;
as the poet keeps waiting
to write his best poem;
as the artist to make his
masterpiece;
I’ve clung to waiting
like the persistent bite of an ant
just to extend myself.
The Year before
Being the Black Hole
The year before being the black hole,
before burning for the last time
the star Arcturus sought the last
refuge
in some heart of the female lovers
on earth
in entire reliance.
That unrequited love still moves
round the universe
in the utterance of dissatisfaction.
Since then all the hearts of the
earth
have still been seeking refuge in
other hearts
with the company of dissatisfaction
forever.
That sense, that wailing build a
nest
in all hearty emotions anonymously.
Then so many ages have gone by
under the rule of the anonymous
insect.
Many years later Aryabhatta first
named it ‘0’
which still lies asleep in our
hearts.
And whenever it gets a scope,
it just leaps and bounds in season
and out of season
like some newly-born cub of a
ferocious animal,
and burns and gnaws at our torn,
timid hearts
in the cremation ground of
nightmares.
The Senses are
Engaged Only in Sense-luxury
Everyday light shines somewhere or
other,
but we don’t have any eyesight
to see the light.
Everyday flowers bloom somewhere or
other
but we don’t have any sense of smell
to smell them.
Every night the stars talk much about
life,
but we don’t have time enough
to listen to them.
Every night, every morning
how much music is sung by some voice
or other!
But our heart is not pleased with
it,
though many materials are there to
be pleased.
Everyday some new scene or other is
created,
but it lies nearly invisible to us.
Everyday how many events beyond senses
happen escaping our senses!
But we don’t have any super senses
either
to perceive them.
Our senses are engaged only in
sense-luxury
throughout all the time of our life;
so great life turns its back on us
in a fit of pique.
In the pungency of artificial light,
the light of great life seems to us
much nasty.
The Loving Male
Though you say, ‘Dunno’
you leave in that phrase
your intoxicating fragrance;
I can’t but be mad,
I can’t but be inebriated,
as I am a loving male.
Only a loving male can be mad
or inebriated
while others can’t understand its
meaning.
And those who understand
but are not lovers,
are deceivers, are stone-hearted.
Though you say, ‘No’
you smear carefully
over the word
the forbidden invitation.
I can’t but respond
as I am a loving male.
I hear in it
the call of churning the sea up.
Though the sharks are there,
no lover treads the invitation
under his feet.
And those who do or dread to churn up
are not the loving males, but other
males.
The Life of Leaves
In the spring gone by
when all the leaves of this forest
had just been born,
the sunlight has since been kissing
them ceaselessly.
Then summer, the rainy season,
autumn---
have come and gone.
Nobody but the sunlight has touched
them
so intimately,
though the rain has come and soaked
them sometimes
like a deserting lover,
though the autumn has come and
covered them
with a coverlet like a querulous
neighbor,
though the wind has come and made
them sway
like a juvenile friend.
Hereafter, past their childhood,
adolescence, youth
when they have now reached the
doorway of old age,
still the sun alone meets them
and caresses them out of immense
love
just like a life-partner.
Now they are fallen leaves;
yet the sun comes to dry away their
pangs
so that they can reach the final
destination
and can lie in peace hereafter.
An Untimely
Invitation
As many times the waves have lapped
over the two banks of the river
as many times the two banks have
unified
to steer the boat to the quay of
your love
as you have stayed at the distant
bank
and now when there is no high tide
no upstream flow for navigation
is it the time for you
to say— I love you— in such a way
to cross the dead river
to beseech in such a loving way
to walk hand in hand
we can’t revive the lost love
in our eyes
though you and I long to
now time doesn’t any more
time chains love over again
with which none has to do anything
I just go on my way and you on yours
many loves end in such a stab of
pity
on the ramshackle fiddle
the tune of pain plays
that time wailings alone overflow
this and that bank of the dead river
When the Moon Swings
in the Lap of the Night
When the moon swings in the lap of
the night,
when the water of the river is
drunk,
when the rain showers just for
creation
in the secluded room of confinement,
when the sun keeps its hostile light
busy elsewhere,
when the scavengers sleep in the
silent nests,
why are you still far away- millions
of miles away?
Who knows what you do alone in the
timid steps?
But then I burn at heart alone in
the Nidhubon.
