Futile Felicity

Teeming millions, half naked souls

Unshaven faces clad in half burnt skins-

They toil in the unforgiving city.

They dropped in the city, uninvited

as from the womb a seventh one-

forsaken amid the squalid swarm.

They slog under the sultry sun

And kicks the hot asphalt with plastic

chappals, smears it with spit of pan.

The evening breeze of river carries

dreams of home, far off- not here-

 in the dingy outskirts of smokestacks.

Their daughters there now fructify,

here their eyes search buxom dames

of the same age, breaking sacrilege.

They toil, they sweat, they sell

from aphrodisiac to incense sticks

to book their beds in cheap brothel.

The never ending burning piece char

their vitals, every passing day, their sins

keep the purgatory’s door ajar.

One day their tired eyes lids,

smeared in futile felicity drop,

dissolving the heartless city in darkness.  

Amitava Chakrabarty

Death

www.layoutsparks.com

Death Oh! Death, come not as a horrid dream

From infinite alley of ether's blackest hole

And drag me off my bony fleshy bowl

And slightly throw this pittance in endless stream.

The natural course to merge with unknown Universe

Should never strangle forcefully with a shock

Nor you show your rugged face and mock

As the last precious moment descend harsh.

The benign transcendental rendezvous

Oh! Be some moments of serene divine bliss,

Let your lips suck my life in gentle kiss

As if a lover to his maiden woo.

Oh! Teach me death in this boisterous youth-

To adore you and embrace the ultimate truth.

Time has Come

Something within all of us went still-

Our pride, our ego, our will,

She took away from all of us

Our own faith- Atmavishwas;

We- the Mango people- left to ‘men

Of straw’- remember Churchill’s omen!

Straw that sucks blood and soul out

From Mother India, with nefarious clout,

Her rape and death has made us learn

Its time to let those suave straw burn.

( On the death of the 23 year old para medic from Delhi)

NEVER

You dragged me in, you dragged me in,

Into the vacuum of a hollow tin,

You embraced me, you doused me,

With warm, squashy paraffin,  

Soothing my desires, nay! Me.

The flicker of joy mingled with

The flicker of ecstatic pain,

Like droplets of dust dispersed in rain

Upon the turbid street side water

After the evening shower

Inside you, you let me loose

My turbulence of hope, despair

The nerves of my inner self

My heart, my blood, my every cell

Inside you lay bare.

Ah! You, the fragrant you

The rosy you, the tulip you

The scented you, the unscented you,

That encircled me like incense smoke

Intoxicating me although.

Oh! The short lived, elusive joy

Short-lived? No! No! No!

Elusive? I spat upon the word,

I struck it off from the dictionary

I differed to differ with you.

I tried to defer the hemlock

That was to burn my throat

And burn my heart or block my brain

With pathos; nay! With pain

Ah! You leave me not.

But that was not to be

It was your time to haul out

Into the greenish infinite sea,

And you hove your anchor

From my battered, isolated, harbour.

My love dissolved into the horizon,

And hours after the waves returned

Kissing my beloved’s soul

It brought some words untold

“Adieu! My love, forever”.... “Never!”!

 ( From my book "So I Used Gray And Other Poems ". The poem was written in 2009)

The Murky Matinee show

The flood lit lush green evening matinee show

Un-lid a plethora of previous pulsating fun

In drawing rooms they scattered the lustrous glow

Oh! What tipsy barons and lusty-leaders undone.

The old withered willow tree of yore

Has lost its aura to murky corporate deals,

Where stinky funds extorted from the poor

Are spent on players as show-horses in fields.

We, the cannon fodder of the advertisement gun,

Are assailed ball by ball and fed with dreams

And bleed day to day in ad-picked inflation

It pushes the precious aam admi to brim.

The twits, the consortia had made a rendezvous-

In dark lanes, with cash and women to woo.

This poem reflected the popular perception of IPL-cricket tournament of 2010.

It is from my book " So I Used Gray & Other Poems"

PARIVARTAN (The Change)

courtesy : http://saikatmandal.blogspot.in

See what fate has come to this land                                          

The land that yielded gold

Is now the ‘killing field’- a brand

Embossed and it firmly holds.

The rice- bowl district had seen in past

Indiscriminate killings,

Where mother fed rice with son’s blood

And today the culprits prowl.

The hapless, hopeless middle class

Was ruled by silent terror,

Where every tongue of resistance-

Came under the chopper.

The humid fertile land still accepts

Thousands from its west or east,

Who spits, litters and vitiates

And cares for the land the least.

The troop of torment has now broken

And diffused silently to other camp

But their thirst for blood has risen

Oh! “The Change” was just a sham.

( http://www.indocanadaoutlook.com/index.php/archives/2013/january-2013/468-poetry-parivartan-the-change)

Question

                                                     

How long you have to walk
To call your friend your own?
The question is easy to ask
The answer- unknown..