Response

The sun was somber,

apprehensive;

It was looking at the clouds

beginning to weave an image

of a cobweb that’d soon

cover it, along with its glow.

Looking at this,

you were writing on the page.

Words had totally covered

your feelings, much like the mesh above.

In the meantime,

the poorly drawn cobweb was done,

it did cloud the sun

soon, a gloom took over the day

your words, your structures

are failing you as you write…

pages wasted in lifeless letters.

You are unable to draw the exact picture

with the acceptable rules of the craft

still your image of verse is so deep and strong

that you cannot go beyond

the prescribed guidelines

you are also scared of being outcast

even when the gossamer has cleared

the text on the page, washed away.

The sun is on its track

smiling, glowing and gleaming

at you, so you could peacefully

personify your response.

Eagerness to bring to light the imaginative

Lost in the physical

In every minute,

The frenzied world though

Writes and talks about

The non-physical.

Confused in the erudite debate

Between truth and lie

Condemned to be trapped and irate

In the destiny of debris

Each one of us

Pushing the insipid rock

Of the punished Sisyphus.

There is this someone

Waiting for the world,

Perhaps to wake up

Or to tae a plunge into an awakening

Slumber, instead of

Blaming anyone for the retribution

For in the court where the judge and the victim stand

The onlookers don’t see the struggle

Of that someone in the forsaken land

Trouble seems to be with

The three-letter word

Does it need to be cleared?

From the heavy, déjà-vu mind

Word that’s abused

From the time we left the abode

We called our home.

How would it matter!

The world wonders

But the desperate dais needs to live

For the sake of existence

It needs to re-create ways

Of survival

Words wouldn’t help

Feelings perhaps simple and naïve

Could usher in the light.

It is light, it is light

Keep your eyes closed or ajar

Through the door

It enters and simplifies

All defining words

Without limits of what it is

And what it is not

Unties the most stubborn knots

No need to name and fight

This the world accepts

Dives deep in unending delight.

The light

I am wandering light

floating…

The world is the sky

I have one moon, one sun

In my eyes

They rotate and change places

At ease

I choose the sun of dawn

And the dreamy moon

Even in the loud afternoons

And stark moonless nights

My eyes radiate the aurora

Of dawns and moonbeams

In the powerful vivid seat

I am at times the throne

Sometimes the king

And at other times the lounge

I lose my aggression, possession and identity

In the light

On the stage

I care for every little feelings

So what do I care

For other things

I am bedeviled

In the sparkle

Not engaged in the argument

If the light is mine or borrowed

For as long as I roam inside the shine

I maybe the king, or the throne

Or the seat in this sky

With the sun and the moon

In my eyes

Being peripheral

You were gracing the sun and the balcony

The window, hiding behind the breezy winds

The vast and pronounced evening shadows

Were playing a symphony.

In this beautiful, silent moment

I was just another company

A lowly poet, cheap and ready

With catchy and attractive rhyming stance

Floating and warring

Content on the surface of those

Dense ‘sous-entendu’ words.

I was merely peripheral

Engaged in cosmetics,

Never inside the content

Groping for the ‘non-dit’.

It is little wonder

I had to remain as a number

Like a brown paper cover

With a silver ribbon

Upon which, the giver pens

About the intent;

Though this importance

Is temporarily noticed

In a while

It is to be fearlessly throw out

When the unexplored, wild

Twilight, a treasure within, unfolds,

A language beyond words re-opens.

Irrelevant

To you, lot has remained untold

now it has lost its relevance,

so I’m silent.

Still

many moments were caught

during our honeymoon

in the solo pictures I took of you

in my camera

with your myriad enticing gestures.

Seeing them after such a long time I felt found,

I also saw many videos

of our family, stages of our world.

But how can I say I saw them?

All of them are beating in the shelf of your house

I saw them with my eyes closed

that’s why

I let them rest here.

The machines are not there anymore, neither the hand

nor the eye;

it dusted in the cupboard for long,

suddenly sold it online.

Why it gathered carelessness should have been understood

but there was no time to think…

for then

our hands were on the desktops

our eyes on the lonely screen.

Now we are wandering outside these daily impressions

closing the eyes is so dear to me

is it the same for you too

perhaps

or perhaps not

maybe you’re looking at other images

buying some other appareil.

We have lost ourselves from each other

never can we find this ‘us’, as it were,

through the same days and nights

under the same sky

facing or back facing the sun

we have lost our relevance

so let some irrelevant moments

remain closed in my eyes.

অপ্রাসঙ্গিক

অনেক কথাই বলতে পারিনি তোমাকে
এখন তার প্রাসঙ্গিকতা হারিয়েছে
তাই বলছিনা
তবু
তোমার নানা ভঙ্গিমার একক ছবি
আমাদের মধুচন্দ্রিমার সময়ে
আমারি হাতে তোলা, আমার ক্যামেরাএ
খানিকটা ধরা পড়েছিল
এখন এতদিন পরে দেখে আমার মনে হলো
দেখলাম ভিডিওতে তোলা নানারকম ছবি
আমাদের পরিবার, সংসারের ছবি দেখলাম
দেখলাম আর বলি কি করে
কেননা ওগুলো তোমার বাড়ির ধুলোমাখা তাকেই আছে
চোখ বন্ধ করে দেখতে পেলাম, তাই লিখছি
এই কবিতাতেই থাকুক ধরা

সেই ক্যামেরাও আর নেই, হাতও নেই
নেই সেই চোখ
অনেক দিন ধুলো পড়েছিল, তাই
হঠাৎ একদিন ঠিক করে
অনলাইনএ বিক্রি করে দিয়েছিলাম
কেন ধুলো পড়েছে তখনি বোঝা উচিত ছিল
কিন্তু তা নিয়ে ভাববার সময় ছিল না
তখন আমাদের হাত ছিল শুধু কম্পিউটার এর ওপর
আর চোখ ছিল একাকী স্ক্রিনএ

এখন আমরা এই সব দৈনন্দিন ছবির
বাইরে ঘুরে বেড়াচ্ছি
চোখ বন্ধ করে তাই আমার কাছে বড় প্রিয়
তোমারও কি তাই
হয়তো তাই
হয়তো বা তা নাও হতে পারে
হয়তো তুমি এখন অন্য ছবি দেখছো
অন্য ক্যামেরা কিনছো

আমরা দুজনে দুজনের থেকে হারিয়ে গেলাম
আর কোনোদিন আগের মতো করে খুঁজে পাবনা
একইরকম দিনরাতের মধ্যে
একই আকাশের তলায়
একই সূর্যকে মুখোমুখি বা আড়ালে রেখে

আমরা আমাদের প্রাসঙ্গিকতা হারিয়েছি

তাই অপ্রাসঙ্গিক কিছু মুহূর্ত
এখানেই ধরা থাকুক 

The cry

There’s this blankness in the air,

everything on the loose

crying raw, raw, rawraw!

Integrity has left in search of another moon

for now, dewdrops in the mornings

are written off as rains by historians

misguided people are busy separating

perfumes from sandal woods,

warmth from the moving cadavers.

Imbalance has become the plat du jour,
insomnia is the new intellectual identity,
art of killing, backstabbing is the new-found intelligence
anything else is seen as a recipe for non-sense.

Businesses somehow survive without users,
for only in advertisements we see creative work, kind words,

what is not innate has become resident for good

all neighborhoods have gone back into the woods,

but even here they are unruly, disobedient strangers,

fleshes and bloods have become hard, as solid red irons.

The pumping heart is useless in living bodies;

from those who are dead, it has fled

like a screeching bird, chirping a strange cry

looking for another sky.

The giving

The world

An endless garden

With pouring silver golden gifts

From morning to morning

Without reason

A constant thanksgiving

For every sentient being

Thanks for coming again and again

In winter and in rain

In autumn and in summer

In most anywhere, everywhere

We are singing this song

In behalf of the garden

It's the giving all the way, all along

Without expectations and without any reason.

Calling your name

You didn't come back

My sky, dark-circled with winds

In the midst of smoky clouds

I am calling you

The sound is losing its sharpness

In the middle of the thunders

I hear them

Are these your footsteps?

Sounds appear as mountains

Where’d I go from this time and place!

I wish my sky could run into you,

From where you walked away

And never came back

What’d I do in this deserted moment and space?

Except to call your name

The deep sleep

To war has gone deep

Inside the world’s sub-conscious

Like the hand that reaches

Towards the pack of cigarettes

Or the leg that controls the speed

Of a plying car

Or the ship that understands and avoids

The frozen disaster

Weapons of destruction

Poverty that’s on the run

Famines and droughts

Throughout the globe, up and about

Are the invisible white magnet

That attracts, automates intellect

Through some compulsive instruction

To break away from these wired

Orchestrated truths

The path will have to be the same

The car has to follow the same track

The ship has to overcome the attraction

Through the same consciousness

That wakes us up from the sleep

Games die hard

One die

Calculation of numbers

In trained memories

Focus trapped in the crafted stage

Concentration to win

Stress on the game board

Players don’t want to be losers

Unintelligent fools

The die, with care, on the loose

Here everything is fair

For winners are dudes

Duds, of no use

Are there any distractions

That could question the engagement

Of this killing entertainment

For the world, a round board

Is dying in the golden hands

Of its clever inhabitants

The adulterous moon

The moon shivers

On the river

Smiles kindly at the worshippers

And showers light on their enemies

Earthquake felt afar

On the horizon that

fluttered like a caged bird

it’s a moonlighting night

but can the star

be questioned

for its inconsistency

the trembling river was trying

to digest flesh

in the unfaithful spring

full of flowers and birds

with twigs and herbs

every other creature

was in deep sleep

to let the shame pass

when the moon with leisure

betrayed its followers

In search of internal innovation

Pink moon of another night,

wants to bring newness in the boring sky

but the blue horror in an airy mess

summons the sun.

If there’s no new death,

no new birth

say the skinny pages

no deluding the blackjacks

the real authors of those leaves

light with dryness

they fly in search of oil and artwork

to give the moony white back

into the nocturnal star

they look like starving assassins

the spelling carries two asses with sins

two enemies intoxicated like twins

a drunken stupor

the sun stares, then smiles

in its usual color.

In the presence of all

these meaningful people

you are absent, inert

sitting like the unused gland

maybe they’d have got

what they wanted

like peace, for instance

or prosperity, for a change .

But no, they want others below them

more than their upping

a flock scared to change color

on and off the stage.

On the ground

some boys play holy

with the bowwow mongrels

they’re busy licking.

You touched, I healed

You called

I suddenly popped up from the clouds

Clots from my mind cleared

I had bruises all over my self

Nothing, that nothing matters

Right and wrong change sides

Everything clears on its own

Like the stars up there

Shining day and night

You smiled

I could see your form

That reflected in the still pristine water

Doubts shivered for a second

You danced even then

Still again

Your smile showed clearly

In between you and not you

There are words

Nothing else matters, nothing does

I could see me tearing open

The curtain of clouds

In between us

There are these lifeless words

Licensed to depict anything as any other thing

I cleared the invented words

Beyond them you stand

Beneath them you dance

Beside them you smile

In the blank you call

In lightness

You touched

I healed