anthology of poems by brotee mukhopadhyay

dark is the day

dark is the day

dark sings a bird

my lonely lane bathed with the silent dark blood

expects I say

one word or two

when I find my lips suddenly dark

 

dark is the day

a dark knife has just kissed the bosom of my earth

dark are her eyes

with the darkest ever tears

yes, it is just that

it is just that

the blasting program of this evening is just over

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only you know

silence!

the dusk is very close.

silence!

a hide is near.

only you know I'm with you

and an envious star stretches

its pencil arms

towards the best treasure of the universe,

your lips,

I mean.

 

silence!

there'll be a bang in my heart

resembling those chimes of the bell long back

sprouted from an aryan temple.

 

silence!

no more I can bear --

only you know I'm with you

alone.

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from the desk of an office clerk

when pupils turn into slaves of digits

and fingers are pained by the plastic pen

my neurons long for a quiet slumber

as i go on copying again

 

vertical rays begin to slant

behind the huge railway base

you will witness fall of petals

if you try to scale my face

 

when pupils turn into slaves of digits

and fingers are pained by the plastic pen

with a hammer on the head and nails on the spine

yours faithfully i do remain

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we have learned to be good

babies in thousands march to the graves

we've learned to be good

we've learned to be slaves

wound in the soul and wound in the mind

no roads to build and no way to find

we move to the north and move to the west

with shivering in spines and snow-struck nests

the sun forgets us and the moon forgets us

in pitch-dark nights and days nebulous

we love coca cola and the Blair and the Bush

let Falluja bleed nest to Hindukush

babies in thousands march to the graves

we've learned to be good

we've learned to be slaves

that we don't want to know that we are slaves

assures the Blair-Bush plate full of grapes

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blame not him

blame not him

if he is pained

 

if he is pained

and in pain if he inclines to raise a voice

notes of which may have rejoice little

if it is of tears

if it is a seclusion melancholic

even else a lunatic statement

or again at last after all is lost

one with a suicide bomb

 

blame not him

if he is pained

if he is pained

and in pain

if he inclines to raise a voice

that not enough to have a shape

which we call beauty, truth and such few ...

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decidedly to the caves I was then

 

decidedly to the caves I was then

and opened its lips the sky :

what will happen with me ?

and the pine next :

with me, too ?

and my dear river hiding her quiet face beneath the sand

sobbed and sobbed and sobbed

all through the festival of carpet bombings over Gandhar and Babylon

the earth remained silent with shivering in the equator

all along

 

decidedly to the caves I was then

and I felt a sudden pull from the eyes of the earth :

leave me not

leave me not alone

not before my funeral

please

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abode of love

o for a pair of moons

silently smiling

smiling at my waves of love

or for a pair of reservoirs

for liquid pearls

or for elixir of heaven

and at its altar

in meditation me

centuries of war, of blood and of fire

notwithstanding

o for a pair of domes on the atlas of your body

or abode of love

brilliant ! ! !

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save love

 

 

save love

whatever you may offer me to love

I do not love, dear friends,

nothing may be had from whatever is offered

save love

from globules to gold

whatever

 

fragrance of flowers or waves of music

my wind may not find

if it runs from pillar to pillar

my wind may not find

even if it runs

ask me to be ready to welcome a bullet

ask me to have a life in a dark cell

again i will say

save love

whatever you may offer me to love

I do not love

save love

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we leave and do not leave

 

we leave the land that does not allow us to till

we leave the river that has water not to drink

we leave the girl who often changes loving souls

still we do not leave those few who let our boats sink

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now in the wood

 

strangled and left

in the wood

the aged vultures surrounding

I have not done what i should have

and I see a snake dancing

on my bosom strangled and left

alone

when darkness encroaching

my soul

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a mirror in a spring

a leaf yellow, yellow still green, is in quest of a mirror in a spring

a low-hill lass folds her body to test how fresh may be her face

when our wood vermilioned or so quiet the forested stones

follow boy one that slips down to close the day at the darkness dense

 

what's in your palm ?

a job in your palm ?

is all that rings at the lips of the lass

and suddenly she stares at the luminous wings

of the last bird in the twilight calm

as she stares and notes tears and tears

the silent boy hides in the spring

yes, he attempts to hide in the spring

a leaf yellow, yellow still green, is in a quest of a mirror in the spring

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mayflowers

 

 

two ends of the mist folding with my hands

to the man in misery

told I :

I've come with the mayflowers

mayflowers for you

into my bosom embedded

 

and my bosom has been rocking

when a village at a glance withers away

as if to follow my tears

destined to be dried up for the right last round

 

my dream, (may be it is so), is not over teens

with limbs still feeble

and with bones still soft

and pungent in odour

but is well in the journey from green to yellow

 

a stream like a stream turns

and devours victorystands one or two

one old confer is uprooted

when on the day of a pensive finale

somewhere at the foothill of the iceclad mountains

one more first day of an age of stone raises its head

 

again my voice is low :

I've come with the mayflowers

mayflowers for you

into my bosom embedded

and my bosom has been rocking

 

my family of misery in front of me

keeps its quiet hand on the dilapidated gate

and exerts pressure on the lower lips with a couple of teeth from the upper jaws

noiseless

but I know and I'm sure :

only for my sake the grey soil

bursts its core

so that the sun greets the green

and I sprinkle water

and I sprinkle tears

and even my blood I sprinkle

 

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down with you !

 

a boy missed to call his mother

a moment just

and he died

and he died before he could call

and he could not even know

right earlier

his mother had been killed

this scene a hoard of camels saw

they were on a run

with unheard ever earsmashers all around them

and they were all ashified

by the carpet of fire, fire of the hell

this scene a hoard of camels saw

then from the womb of the acres of cotton

beneath a sunless sky

from the eerie darkness of the railway tunnels

thro' the mountains deformed

from the caves of the ship

stationed voiceless

after cartoons of tea were thrown to the jetties

beneath a sunless sky

thousands of head did rise

black and black and black

and they did rise with burnt centuries on their back

air now willed to have wings

and willed to move away to the sky

and water of the rivers willed to hide face

as if no speech it had ever

and a bird of tiny beak

with the entire snow of the earth on the wings

wept and wept and wept

and a conifer remained straight

and remained rigid

and remained spined

and a curse it hurled :

down with you !

down with you !

down ! down ! down !

==============================

 

 

he rests on the dust

 

he rests on the dust

fragrance of tears around

to nobody he is a weapon

a weapon he is still

that a weapon he is still many of us know

we know he does suffer while taking a side

and wars continue

and I've touched him with this hand

and I've learned that he is not dead

and nor even in a sleep

his lips are closed

and eyes overflowing water woe and wonder of beautiful life

 

he rests on the dust

fragrance of tears around

to nobody he is a weapon

======================================

how this darkness is

 

how this darkness is

darkness sprinkled with blood

my birds are in the hills

forested hills

my birds have no sleep

and look at me

my means to respond I've left on the way

terrorized

lest my grains may be burnt

and away is the door of the dawn

suddenly I find my love at the door

eyes fixed at the soil

poor eyes holding stream of the disdained time

how is this

my birds are in the hills

forested hills

my birds have no sleep

to compose a poem for the doom of the dark

==================================

 

he does not know why it does hurt him

 

he does not know why it does hurt him

he does not know why he feels it hurts

why he does hear the lashes of the whip

and he does feel the fetters tied to the legs

he does not know why he does feel

a fiery bullet has just smashed his bosom

 

again a stagnant day

oxygen rare

as if a man has smartly uprooted the enigmatic eyes of a deer

and in seconds followed

at the lonely eyes of his innocent babe directs amorous look

pearls blessed by the dews at the top of the green

nevertheless

presents a morn

which he desires to bag as the means for the day

when on the spine that does not learn to be folded

time rests its tender finger

and suddenly he finds

a recruit of the American force in one of his mother's sons

he wants to be a fish in the river

and simply forgets that he has never been somewhere near it

 

he does not know why it does hurt him

he feels it hurts

======================================

men are different

 

nights stare at me

and await

i reflect

days too stare

and await

i reflect

in the column

my sky and the conifer stand

 

men are different

lanes of labor on a run

they wave hankies

red and blue and yellow and green

while in motion

while in motion

ask :

don't you have a tale to tell ?

a tale which is yours ?

======================================

 

 

tendulkar

 

hear me, sir !

no difference you've with the slender stick you hold

the stick is even unhappy to have a touch of my palm

and hence on the fifth turn

has turned so furious that I remember

my pet jimi on his first derangement

 

tendulkar. sir,

he has been my mind since last night

and this little thing, this very little thing only

I have essayed to whisper to the ear of saathee, my mate,

yes, sir, when you're in the chair

and then e and I in the word 'quiet' change position suddenly

and 'receive ' and 'believe' put me into a whirlpool

right you're, sir,

I'm an ass

 

the school will close in time

and I'll be at home

mom !

my mom is a microscope that will read my eyes

interrogations !

she will know all from me and report my dad at the dinner

my dad

mercury I call

tendulkar was bowled out just below a ton

and my dad instantly punished the television set while switching it off

yes, sir,

this had occurred last night

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sky is the limit

 

whose sky this is and where the limit is

after i've sprayed radioactivities

from plants of the states

where birds leave the nests

and children cross the street

with splinters ready to greet

 

whose sky this is and where the limit is

when spirit of the time suffers in the cities

trapped in the blasts at the call of any faith

nothing new is yielded and old order changeth

let us drink and dance and celebrate this day

in a huge slaughter house, come, let us play

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