Dr Amitava Chakrabarty is an Ex-Freelance journalist of Hindustan Times. He has contributed several letters to "The Statesman" and other dailies since 1995. He contributed many poems and short stories to "The Asian Age", "Times Of India" and "The Statesman". He contributed poems to "Indian Poets United", and to many national and international anthologies. He also contributed to "The Green Lotus", Poetcrit, Metverse Muse, etc. He was an Ex-Content writer in "Bengal on the Net". He acted as a content re-writer in www.ccdftc.org and performed in All India Radio in talk shows and recitations.
23. The Poet Weeps
As twilight melts into darkness
And sultry humid air
Devours the city and suburbs,
Intermittent sounds of conch -shells
From clustered houses emanate,
Proclaiming victory over evil.
The women folks of Bengal
Are involved in evening prayer,
And the poet weeps.
From his helpless window
He sees the daily influx
Of illegal refugees, crossing
the border in search of food
Which already in scarce this side
Then they hold a flag
To please the politicians,
They spend some money
To please some officials,
And become citizens.
The city and its suburbs
Thus get flooded daily
by teeming millions -
for food or shelter, which
Already in scarce this side.
And seeing men breeding in gutter
And dying in gutter, death -
They couldn't avoid, this side
The poet weeps.
Night descends
The city prepares for sleep
Hungry naked children,
Sucking their fragile mother's breast
Just below vapour lamps;
As a huge procession passes by
Shouting for democracy, world peace
And the poet weeps.
24. Path of Poetry
What should I tell you ?
An insensitive heartless snipe
Or an ignorant woodpecker
That picks with its beak
The arteries and veins.
Of a man's heart to
to tear it appart.
A heart that saw the stars
The moon, the earth, the sea
Or saw on the branch of a tree
Two love birds making love
Self occupied amid tender harmony
In rhythms of unheard symphony
Enjoying every bit of courtship dance
And lost in trance.
The vision was futile off course
As the woodpecker have changed the tree
The dent or hole or whatever
haven't bled but the heartlessness
Has stopped the heart.
Leaving a few throbbing moments
Or a path for my poetry.