Promise

It’s time’s promise to me that I would also grow old

It’s my promise to time, with age I will never be bowed.

The sacred and the scared

You are unafraid to die, what a skill!

But you are also unafraid to kill!

Are you afraid to love and live?

Are you afraid to believe?

You are afraid of your guide,

You are afraid of the pages,

You are afraid of your pride,

You are afraid of other sages.

You are unafraid with weapons,

You are unafraid with arms,

You are unafraid of the killings,

You are unafraid of allarms!

You are afraid to heal,

You are afraid to be friends,

You are unafraid to steal

You are afraid to mend.

You are unafraid of your hides,

You are afraid to be kind,

You are unafraid of your sides,

You are afraid of your mind.

You are unafraid to be sacred,

Afraid to alter dead thoughts

Unafraid, but you are scared

Afraid to deliver from your corps.

You are unafraid of your folly,

Unafraid to kill the unarmed dead,

Your arms are unafraid and holy,

To turn the green sack red.

You are unafraid to die, what a skill!

But you are also unafraid to kill!

Are you afraid to love and live?

Are you afraid to believe?


One typo in the poem can be excused as a licence to demystify the present crisis. Thank you.

Hands

Hands, an online bridge, rising from the hearth

Albeit homework for destruction around, connect with the earth,

Nimble fingers clear clouds from the brain, smile with the rain

Despite wars all the time, twenty-four by seven

Solidarity will right and rhyme with heaven.

Dedicated to the peoples of all the 233 countries of the world

ইতিকথা

কথার অন্জলী দিলাম

দিয়ে কথার জলান্জলি

কথার মরণসন্ধিতে পেলাম

কথাম্রিতের ঝুলি

A year that was, will be

This year passed in confinement.

Detached eyes and ears,

It also passed in sublime seclusion,

Time spent with me, myself

Many times in days and nights

I died and I cried

I also laughed and smiled

I did resurrect.

I lived through my virtual pen

That brought to me loving eyes and listening ears

This year, like the year that was

Without much attached rules and laws

My breathing space of hope and despair

Went... in an unheard fulfilment.

Content.

I have nothing to look forward to

Past is the future without a hint or clue.

Time is the predicament.

Nothing will change

In the minds weird, strange

Hunger for anger all around

Distaste for peace

Starving the poor without ground

Wouldn’t be closer to bliss

That, my pen would reflect.

Except for the sky on which I’d walk

I know the earth would feel

The flowers with whom I’d talk

I know grasses will see

Leaves will drop to heal

Their touch and their smell would come to me

I know, in the form of family and friends

With bones and flesh

Alive and lively for the sake of a few

My heart would beat next year too

With love, without repent.

insane journey

The world is raging

With hatred, anger

To avenge the mindless killing

Of innocent lives, war

It is all set to declare;

The Third World War;

Escaping the sight,

From those collective wrath and wry

Sprung a song, in the guise of a dancing cry

For the sake of those same naive lives

Squeezed and stole its way for a tryst

To search for the first world peace.

Earth

Look...just look at the map!

Names are changing and so are the minds,

We’re not in holes, neither in any lapse

The real change is here, from useless feuds unkind.

Earthnorth America! Earthsouth America!

Eartheurope! Earthafrica!

Earthasia! Earthaustralia and Earthoceania!

Countries on this earth, humming eureka, eureka...

Ears and eyes have opened to the stable moving earth,

Graves of grieves have softened, rejoicing in this re-birth.

New focus is our earth, not any invisible stars,

The mud is set to plough where reaps will heal the scars.

Earthnorth America! Earthsouth America!

Eartheurope! Earthafrica!

Earthasia! Earthaustralia and Earthoceania!

Countries on this earth, humming eureka, eureka...

Words, words, and words we’d all been fighting for words,

Good that now we found the earth in our world.

We’d safeguard still our respective identities,

Like flowers of one garden blooming all at ease.

Earthnorth America! Earthsouth America!

Eartheurope! Earthafrica!

Earthasia! Earthaustralia and Earthoceania!

Countries on this earth, humming eureka, eureka...

In conversation with...

In the middle of changes,

The mind is armed.

Unable to deliver from the chains

A slippery surface, a bond

To win is to kill.

The intelligent brain with unmatched skill

That could bring heaven from the sky

Is hurting the earth with wrath and wry,

In chain is the constant destiny

Not changed a bit has our wailing history.

Good leaders of the world,

Old leaders of the world,

New leaders of the world,

Bold leaders of the world,

Guns are for those insecure and scared

Don’t flaunt them, benumb them

Stop this destructive expensive game.

They’re for those helpless cowards

Step in, we need you, come forward.

Join us for a change, please listen to us

Good and old, new and bold leaders

Follow the drum that beats too in your hearts.

An appeal by the peoples of this star

A cry from all the countries without bar

Is to re-build the world with gumption and sense,

Kill the need to scythe with our creative intelligence.

We want a no-weapon world,

A weapon-less world, a weapon-free world,

Focus, our leaders on this timeless troubled floor

Don’t create and market those killers anymore

Stock them now for good in their only asylum

Freeze them now with care in the new museum.

All countries will have one sacred little space

Where heartless treasured arms would coffin all in grace

Flags would fly on top, hum a different unsung tune

That was hiding in the hearts, in the depraved morn and noon.

Those museums, our children would visit and say

‘Once upon a time, we used these to kill and slay

We are out of it now thank goodness

We won’t get killed anymore, good riddance.’

...

Why did you write this poem in my mind?

What is your intention I don’t understand

That which repeats with organs mute and blind

To bring about the change on this history’s land

Do you think it’s possible? This miraculous magic!

Of course yes it is, the hearts are waiting to click

It cannot happen with might, it cannot happen with force

Would happen if you please, by tapping the constant source

You may call it love or by any other name

Present in all of us, in ways just the same

With the peoples of the world, the real power lies

From enemies everywhere, friends will smile and rise

Lively arms would stretch and inert arms will yield

For those who lied on streets, and those who died on fields

Tired objects would rest in silent museum

Minds would all be free, from the insane asylum

Pursuit

My moment has arrived, in time devoured

Extent to complete hanging onto my hat

Contour of the verge scored

Glimmer of a fiction or fact.

How implausibly stable I’d think,

The demeanour of the constant while,

I’d float in the immovable wave of time

In the preface of my story’s ink.

With hand-holding years seemingly few

Stages slowly passed by

Confines time and again anew

Made me forget, wingless boater could fly.

Today, having arrived at the near end of my game

My seat on the proem as I see,

Everyday dressed just the same

On the flower is the busy blending bee.

Permanence or cliff-hanger, both lie,

In their lazy chorus underlying theme,

Euphonious time stays, appears to wither and fly

Around the balanced, resolute stream.

The Bengali version of the poem is অভিযান, posted here.  

অভিযান

আমার সময় এসেছে,

সব প্রতীক্ষার শেষ ৷

সীমার রেখা টেনেছে,

ঘটনা-গল্প কেটে যাওয়ার রেশ ৷

কি অবিশ্বাস্য স্থায়িই না ভাবতম

এখানের স্থির সময়ের চলাটাকে

কালের অচল স্রোতে ভাসতাম

গ’ড়ে চলা কাহীনির ভূমিকাতে ৷ 

বছরের হাত ধ’রে,

সময় চলে যেত,

সীমানা নতুন ক’রে,

ডানাহীন গতিকে ভুলিয়ে দিত ৷

গল্পের প্রায় শেষপ্রান্তে এসে আজ 

দেখি, শুরুতেই ব’সে আছি ৷

প্রতিদিনের একিরকম সাজ,

ফুলেতেই সেই সুরেলা মৌমাছি ৷

শেষের কাছে শুরুর মিছে কথা,

শুরুর সাথে শেষের নৃত্যগান,

সবই বুঝি নিত্য সুরে বাধা,

তালের সাথে গতির অভিযান ৷

The English translation of the poem is Pursuit, posted here.