Feeling is the universe

There's no painting
that takes me there,
texts fired me long
ago, I get attached to the
strings for nothing,
all paraphernalia fail,
I’m inevitably thwarted
to experience, witness 
the prescribed romance,
angst of time and space.

The brush, the pen, 
the rhyme, the rhythm
morass me in an abyss
of unreal compositions,
useless jewels.

I close my eyes,
with newfangled wings 
I feel the early clouds
in the sky, the news
of sunrise through my
goosebumps, I approach
the beach, the waves caress
my feet.

I wonder how I was
in the midst of the magic,
which mechanical miracle
took me to the warmth,
the froth, even the salt in 
the waves my bewildered
tongue could sense.

I open my eyes.
The dichotomy has
me confused.

In gratitude, I wake up
and crawl my way up
from the gorge, look at
the canvas, the words,
the notes in wonder,
are these then the
technical instruments
in prose and verse,
that opened the treasure 
of my priceless universe.  

Worth, worthless

Meanings, reasons, beliefs
sharpening the intellect,
sullying the intelligence,
caged albums,
memories I need to sit upon
I carry on my head,
a herculean burden;
there's no meaning in nature
other than what it simply is;
with the three humanly designed 
impediments, boons, and banes,
clashes are inevitable.
Don't blame the child
shooting on the computer
waiting, wanting, willing,
yearning to shoot for real.

You know scores of things
more than I do, but now
I have a machine that knows
thousand times more than you;
so, now what is your value,
it’s perhaps nothing
other than the worth
of a human being.

The outcast

The longing to belong,
a hammer the hurts
the chords of a song;
slavery of the tie-ups,
a group, a tribe, a race,
a class, or a community,
blocks the possibility,
flow of humanity
without grace.

To sing along in wonder,
with the ups and downs
of the stars is perhaps
the liberating dignity,
the outcast key.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas
Santa will relieve us
From the dangerous virus
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas
Stay at home, enjoy the festival
On-line with friends and families,
With cakes, pastries, and the Christmas Tree,
We are going through difficult times,
Have faith, don't watch the news all the time,
Don't be scared, don't be serious
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!

 

কৃষ্ণের মতে কৃষ্ণের মত

কৃষ্ণের মতে চল, কৃষ্ণের কথা বল
কৃষ্ণের মত কাঁদ, কৃষ্ণের মত নাচ
কৃষ্ণের মত ভাব, কৃষ্ণের ভাবে ভাস
কৃষ্ণের হাসি হাস, কৃষ্ণকে ভালবেসে 

তারই মত ভালবাস।

যদি বল
হরে কৃষ্ণ হরে কৃষ্ণ
কৃষ্ণ কৃষ্ণ হরে হরে,
হরে রাম হরে রাম
রাম রাম হরে হরে,
তবে যত দুঃখ যত কষ্ট
সবই যাবে দূরে সরে,

আনন্দে মন উঠবে ভরে।

আবার জাদু কেমন আছে দেখো
কৃষ্ণ রামের মন্তরে 

যদি বল হ রে কৃষ্ণ হ রে রাম 

একটু খানি ছেড়ে ছেড়ে
তবে যা চাও তা হবেই হবে  

সকল কাজই তোমার ভবে 

দেখ কেমন সফল হবে
বাহিরে আর অন্তরে।

তাই বল
হরি বোল হরি বোল 

আস্তে আস্তে জোরে জোরে 

এই নামেরই বলে সবাই

শুদ্ধ হব হেসে খেলে,
তাই সবাই বল  তালি দিয়ে

হরি বোল হরি বোল
    হরি বোল হরি বোল।   

Lost voices

Still. You remain still.
Yet, speak a thousand words.
Who is the silent speaker inside
of me?
You see, you hear, you judge, you
snigger; a mirror broken into pieces,
they take several roles, times, spaces.
Demons that were asleep suddenly
wake up in the middle of a doublespeak
raillery. Their tongues reaching
up to the sky talking of the past,
only of the past, pulling off  
a nauseating course of memories.
I crawl toward the garden, but my hands
are stampede with brown leaves, full
of words, forlorn lovers.

Is this the world, a stillborn world
that I nursed within, with resilience,
faith, and affection? Just when death
was born in front of me, I fathomed that
it was a fake offspring that was giving
me the genuine pain of a new-born.
You pick up those slices of glass, pelt a
thousand questions at me. They sound
gibberish.

The world is massacred with words
whose sweethearts, actions, are lying
dead; a mound of cadaverous lives
moving inside the womb feigning birth,
waiting to come out as lost paramours;
only their voices masquerade, a downpour
of mimicries.

Shipping the waste

The West is dumping its
waste on the rest of the
world.
The unsinkable is sailing
close to the wind while
on the other sides, the poor
cousins are taken for a ride,
their burden of garbage and
debris, warming up, like an
iceberg.

Introduction

I thought I could see with
my eyes, hear with my ears,
but they had been sold much
before I was born.

When I began to enjoy being
with my best friend, my solitude,
I could sense intrusions in
my time and space.

I realized who I am, who I am not
in my or in someone else’s company
had been seen, heard, written, and read,
I was someone breathing fresh air,
but introduced as the other, long dead.

Mystery

Light that I see outside

Drags me toward obfuscation, 

Delving into darkness inside

I feel the warmth of illumination. 

I have a sense of despair with

The successes and failures

I experience outside, 

But with the ones I invoke inside

I am overwhelmed, gratified. 

The realities I seize outside

Drown me to an abyss of falsehood, 

But the ones I witness inside

Deliver me to the garden of truth. 

With more of possession I acquire

Outside, I become poorer, sadder, 

The endless wealth I discover

Inside makes me richer, happier. 

I may win or lose the wars I engage outside, 

But I inevitably become a victim, 

I emerge as a winner and take pride

When I conquer myself from within. 

Where are the words

Parashar was an electrician. He was also a writer, a writer who was not much read. He considered his writings to be like those flowers that didn’t smell of any particular class. They just bloomed, like the plants that grew without anyone's care in those old buildings, or like those shrubs that never attracted anyone's attention. He knew deep inside that writers are not writers if they are not read, but he didn't seem to care much. He kept on expressing himself on things that concerned him the most.

He seemed to be searching for something, of what he wasn’t sure. Sometimes he thought he was looking for a jaw-dropping miracle that’d transform the way people thought, for instance, if a person could fly, or bring a country of the Sahara Desert, or could make the vast lands in Australia habitable, or if someone could walk on the sky, and so on. 

At other times he thought he was looking for a drama, like a person who was being crucified by a group of powerful people but was speaking of love and affection; with eyes on heaven, he was seeking forgiveness on behalf of those very people who were killing him in public. 

He thought he was also looking for some magic; magic that would transform paper currency into fruits and flowers, or feed the starving stomachs, or could transform the most disastrous of weapons into garlands. 

He was looking for these three things; miracle, drama, and magic, but all of these through his words.

Where are the words

Write
Switch on love
Switch off hate

Write
Switch off war
Switch on peace

Write
Switch on forgive
Switch off rage

Write
Switch off pollution
Switch on purity

Write
Switch on light
Switch off darkness

This work, especially the form of the poems, is partly influenced by an excellent poet, Dr. Rita De's short verse in Bengali:

সুইচ অন ঘর আলোময়
সুইচ অফ ঘর রামময় 

which in English, roughly translates into:

Switch on, the room is illuminated
Switch off, the room rims with Rama

পরিযায়ী পাখি

ভিটে ছাড়া পরিযায়ী পাখি

একসাথে উড়ে চলেছে,

অজানা অচেনা ঠিকানায়,

কোনখানে থামবে যাত্রা

কখন কোন রাত্রির আশায়,

অন্তহীন নীল আকাশের

তলায়, কোন এক বৃক্ষের

ডালে, তারাও বাঁধবে সংসার,

ক্লান্ত ডানাগুলি পাবে বিশ্রাম 

ক্ষনিকের তরে পরিবার, আশ্রয়।

a panacea

Rich are becoming richer,
poor poorer,
we can go to the moon,
but cannot move an inch
away from the designed pattern
malnutrition, starvation, poverty
running the show of affluence,
benevolence, grants, loans;
how much can
ignorance ignore;
touch wood, we have these
two lovely little resilient
words: move, on
a panacea   

lost labor

Wasteful sciences
occupied in understanding
the outer space, yet unable
to stop the worldly challenges
draining the hard labor of
the starving farmers

the distraction

When you can't prevent
a storm with useless
sciences and technologies
assign it a sexy name
and wait for it to arrive
again and again,
raise a question on 
why a female's name,
it'll be considered as
a distraction, a drawing-room
conversation, a storm
in the cup

a new approach

Stop all wars
destroy all weapons
channel the soldiers
to fight force majeure;
these are as important
as wearing helmets
and masks

the decaying village

wars,
majestic, royal 
white elephants
of the world
weapons,
symbols of failure
displayed with success
to induce fear
soldiers,
fresh flesh in the
slaughterhouse
guilt buried
in honored coffins,
muffins to the
bereaved families

Worldkrupt

bankrupt world...
of values, worth
to safeguard 
the interest
of the country
the principle
of the world
is lost

Fill in the blank

I belong to my country,
I love my country,
...
There's no problem
With that, however
...

Keep doing it

O, my talkative mind!
I know you cannot shut up,
be silent; so keep saying,
I love, I love, I love, I love,
I love, I love, I love, I love;
that's all you need to do
to see the magic, to experience
the miracle; you'll stop feeling
the void of worthlessness,
no longer will you be
unconscious, or ashamed of
the gap between who you
are, and who you aren't, yet
pretend to be proud, like a hypocrite,
carrying a sense of guilt;
you are insane materially,
be insane immaterially;
kindness, complete fulfillment,
purity will be the air you'll
breathe. Just say, I love, I love,
I love, I love, I love, I love,
it works. Keep doing it.

This may not be the only way,
but keep your thoughts pure
from the inside, in whichever form
you please, pray or talk to
yourself with words full of peace,
pure power, infinite bliss.
Instead of saying, I hate, 
say, I love, I love, I love, I love,
it works. Keep doing it.

You needn't chant any mantra,
nonbelievers may not worship
anyone, or anything, just check
your thoughts that rot inside
you on a daily basis, clean 
the garbage from your mind,
convert it into a garden, by
planting seeds that are replete
with your and the world's
well-being, keep on talking,
I love, I love, I love, I love, I love,
Change the world you're living in,
it works. Keep doing it.  

The supreme species

farmers, who feed the human
civilization, are starving to death,
women, 'used' to breed the supreme
species are getting violated;

rich becoming richer,
poor poorer, as an aftermath
of the vulgar growth and
development, global warming,
in the heat of hatred and wrath; 

wars have advanced,
they have become viral, 
digital, cyber, nuclear;

on the other hand, volumes
are written with chosen words,
selective histories, measured 
Ps and Qs to highlight generosity,
magnanimity, and benevolence,
to fill the lifeless shelves, grease
pockets of lofty ideas with the milk
of human kindness that never comes
to play on the needy fields;

we are taught by design, to be positive,
with heaps of hopes on transformation,
on the resurrection, to be proud as the
supreme species born with consciousness, 
the sole differentiator from the rest
of the nature-abiding creatures;

in this day and age, basking in self-glory,
blinded by towers of achievement, 
screeching accolades, appreciations
nothing goes inside, no guilt, 
no shame, no remorse, no atonement. 

No one

I was traveling, in the
middle of this global pandemic,
without a mask, without washing
my hands. Audacity? Defiance?
S’enfoutisme? Maybe, but I wasn’t
afraid of the virus anymore.

I saw a beautiful world,
men, women, children with
their conditions; everyone suffered,
some with wealth and health,
some without, but I could clearly figure
a sense of pain in them; it was as if they
were carrying an imperceptible germ
within them; to be able to do that they
were expecting someone to come and
deliver them, but who? A leader,
a guru, a god, a lover, a friend, who?
Rest assured, no one came.

When I closed the book, I thought
I could be all those the characters were
looking for, I could also be any one of
the players! The story made me wonder
if no one was also someone.

I took out my mask and went out to buy
some groceries, I carried a sanitizer with me,
very soon, as it were, I will be out on a
different journey with heaps of hopes
that I could change my world that can
do without a purifier and a mask on the
stage.

Paradise

Clouds in the sky,
thoughts,
waves on the sea,
repeated froths,
I behold the liquid 
nothings as huge
insurmountable rocks,
listen to their hollow
sounds and find me in the
blues, blue horrors
overpower me;
I look for my paradise
above, the seas lose on 
the ground, they’re beyond
my sense, lying hidden
inside my golden garden
waiting to surface, but
overcast with foams of lies.

Our priceless abode

   

snows are melting,

the temperature of our 

solitary nest increasing

beyond limit,

join hands and act 

to reduce carbon emissions 

in the balconies, windows, 

doorways, porticos

attics, terrace of our 

unique home;

for some time, scrap the 

borders that you have 

scratched over it,

the indigenous people 

are suffering the most 

for our expensive habit,

look beyond the codes

of selfish boundaries,

unite in action, 

not in mere words 

to save the earth, 

our priceless abode

Rose is not a word

 

The word rose doesn’t

emulate any colour, no matter
how perfectly read,
it doesn’t carry any sense 
of smell either, however
flawlessly the speaker accents.

Poetry cannot die

I will prove to the world,
with my indomitable words,
poems can kill all wars,
all anger, jealousies, hatred;
here’s to my lines, read 
or unread, but they lie in 
black and white.
I will keep playing my tune,
until all wars end, to you
I’ll sing, with a heart 
in my head, ‘poetry 
cannot die, it is 
never ever dead.’

In the circus of things

I had tied all of you in a rope,
until you ate, dressed and spoke,
wrote, and even thought like me, beyond 
any scope; with your entity, civilization,
language, attire, and food, lost in our hands
of power, prowess, intolerance, to ape me, 
became your condemned destiny.

Now, with all of you locked up in my cage,
I speak of justice, liberty, disarmament,
I score you down for distorting my language,
I mark you high for your neutralized accent.

The odd one

In the garden of tulips
a lotus was born; the gardener
smiled, but those in power,
surprised; they ordered to pluck 
the intruder, it was thus thrown
outside the border; the earth, like
the garden of flowers nourished 
the outcast with light, water, and air.

At work

Write, till your eyes turn in,
read, till you look within; you
will soon construct a different world,
where the azure paradise will fall
in love with your golden garden.

In the midst of miracles

The sun and the moon,
the earth and the sky,
the water and the air,
heal my world from
this warring lie.

I know of no other
gods and goddesses,
no kings or queens,
no princes or princesses,
I worship you, your highness,
cure my world, tired with
hatred, anger, lovelessness.

The meadows and the gardens,
the seas and the oceans,
the flowers and the fruits,
the brooks and the rivers,
the rocks and the mountains,
help my world to see,
your bounty and treasures,
enable them to hear the
sounds of your beats,
empower them to taste
the benevolence of your juice,
to you alone, I sink on my
knees, bless my world
deliver it from the disease of wars.

The kind wind and the breeze
so mercifully do you grease
all my sentient beings
so they love, live, and play,
every night and day,
I know you’ll never ever leave
us to die; in you alone, I believe,
teach my world with your pure
touch, how to caress, care, and cure.

I pray to you with all my heart,
my world, you’ll never fall apart,
with all your selfless teachers around
let our feet not lose the ground,
we’re blinded and deafened by
the debacle of disaster and deceit,
help us see and hear your miracles,
let them activate the sleeping brain,
let them rejuvenate our heartbeat.

In medias res

I can dance in the middle of a war
like a cattle in the slaughterhouse,
I can sing in the middle of greedy
hunger for power, like a severed
rooster; I can die in the middle of
pious talks on global peace and
harmony, I can drown myself in
guilt and shame in the middle of
theoretical cacophony;
I can be mesmerized at the autocratic
insistence on growth and development,
when millions starve under the indifferent
firmament; I can chant spiritual mantras
in the middle of inequality and caprice,
like a gang-raped teenager, seeking justice,
I can dance in between the designed gap
of word and action, and listen to volumes of
discourse on integrity, on one hand, I become
rich, and on the other, I breed poverty.

Freedom

When you go to 
a wise person,
seek love, do not 
seek wisdom,
an invaluable lesson
that can deliver
absolute freedom.

Intelligence

In the human world,
everything that has no 
sense makes sense;
intelligence is blinded 
by the visible, deafened 
by the audible, while the 
one that’s holding it
is cosmic intelligence.

Human beings are, in
essence peaceful in nature,
but they are also insecure;
intelligence is the way out,
but it is also the trap,
the key is to unlock the gap.

A purposeless visit

I went to the neighborhood
where I grew up, just to
see if the condition of the
house where I lived, the field
where I played with friends,
the forbidden place beside
the ganges where I smoked
my first cigarette.

Everything about the locality
had changed, I felt like a stranger
there, I was kind of expecting a
familiar face, I found none.
I was also worried about the
small talks of the big people,
what to say if I met anyone,
why was I there, what would
be the credible purpose! 

But I walked past many times,
felt like running but my knees
didn't permit; the open field,
transformed into a multi-storied
choked me completely, I was
wiping my tears, thought would
have come with a makeup,
but no one could recognize
the weeping child wiping the
moist eyes in front of a high rise.

I didn't realize that my age
was my natural disguise. 

Some small poems

Waves...
caressing the beach
album of memories

Sky...
holding the clouds
moist eyes

Autumn...
falling leaves
heaps of stories

Morning sun
on my plate
beside slices of bread

Crickets, fireflies
jungle speaks
bedtime stories

Blue sky
twinkling stars
an owl eyes a frog

Alas!

In a world full of wonders,
twinkling stars, singing birds, 
wandering rivers, bountiful
seas, oceans, mysterious
forests, majestic mountains,
in the midst of all the 
mesmerizing, nature-abiding
sentient beings, only the
supreme of all is accursed. 

Alas! Alas! Alas! 

If any spell could deliver
me from this shame and guilt, 
I'd turn into a rat or a bat, 
an ant or an elephant, or into
any other being beneath the 
patient, priceless, paradise, 
I'd live merrily here before 
I fell prey to hunger or greed
or simply died on the earth
where I could breathe and breed. 

Ashamed to death

I'm ashamed to be born
as a human being, 
doubly ashamed to be born
as a man, I wouldn't choose
to end my life, 
but I'm waiting to die. 

A welcome decision

The day is not far away

happiness is here to stay! 

Leaders decided to stop fighting, 

to the world they'd do justice;

as protectors of all sentient beings, 

they'll no longer die for power

they'll work together to live for peace.

A coping mechanism

Why do I still weep

like a child at the

outcry of wars, I 

should've been used

to it by now. 

I should've known

by now that it's okay

to kill your neighbours

who are, mostly, your

enemies.

I've learned it at every

step of my life;

it's read, heard, tested, 

no matter how high

you fly, like an eagle, 

keep looking for the weak

prey, kill and survive. 

It'd be strange if I thought 

it was a poor example

of an innocent hungry bird

looking for food, to be abused

as an excuse to rage

war, be condemned to it

for ever and for good? 

How did civilization invent 

this mechanical game as

a coping mechanism I wonder, 

it destroys not only the stage

but all the actors in the play

dying for power. To discover

peace, wouldn't it been easier? 

We breed wars perhaps

because abortion is not okay. 

Why then when I see the stillborn

I cannot help crying. I should've

been used to it by now, as a 

coping mechanism. 

মায়ের কবিতা

এই ত সেদিন হলি, 

আমার কোল আলো 

করে, কখন তুই এত্তো 

বড় হয়ে গেলি রে 

মানিক? যে আজ তোর

বিয়ে হচ্ছে! 

ভালো থাকিস, সুখে থাকিস

বাবু আমার। 

তুইও তোর জীবন দিয়ে

আমারই মত অবাক হয়ে

একদিন এই একই কবিতা লিখিস।

ভালো থাকিস সোনা আমার

সুখে শান্তিতে থাকিস।