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