Awakenings in the Dark World (Poetry)

Awakenings in the Dark World

by Shahinur Islam

(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.