The Walk Away

Gradually I have distanced myself from
all those faces that were so dear to me
and from all those faces that used to be
once upon a time my everything.

The walk away had been painful and slow,
as far as half a step each day at most
still with the tiny drops of rain, one day
all the oceans, so deep and vast were formed.

Once, from the bright glow of the rising sun
through the afternoon and the evening
all the way to those sweet and precious dreams
the joy of my life rose and fell with them.

Yet when I had seen that the weariness
from the fever and the fret of my life
was almost on the verge of drowning me
I had to walk away with tearful eyes,
for I could neither share with nor impose
the burden of the barren weight on those
faces that were for me like a sun for the earth
and those dear faces I loved, wholeheartedly.

Missing Home

for Kazi Shuchitabrotee Shuchi

When I look at the setting sun
drowning below the horizon,
as the drifting clouds start to bleed,
a longing spreads around my soul
from the emptiness overhead
till the moon and the stars arrive.

When I see a sea of faces,
all unknown, too indifferent,
walking up and down just like me
an emptiness burns through my soul
from being alone among the crowd,
too busy with our ignoble strife.

I long to be where I was born,
the place I used to call my home.

I miss my home too far away
left behind a long time ago
in my search for a better life
and a smoother way to survive.

I have sailed through the rolling seas,
through the clouds looming on the sky,
across the desert sand, too dry
and over the blue mountain peaks
in a vain search for better days
and for smoother ways to survive.

Almost half way across the world,
half of life spent in wandering
in this marvelous land of dreams
I miss my sweet home in the end.

What If

Let me plunge into the abyss, headlong,
let me fight the current with my bare arms,
let the vicious predators fall behind,
frozen and pale from the fear of unknown
and I shall pierce through the mantle and the core
to emerge on the surface of the world…

Let me soar across the chameleon sky
as high up as the swirling wind can go,
let the winged predators give up the chase,
being breathless and by the sun rendered blind
and I shall fly across the continents,
dense, empty and across the oceans, blue…

Let me roam alone in a desert realm
where soothing shadows thick enough to breathe
are more precious than a mine full of gold,
let me there sow the seeds of tender love
and watch them grow into green, moist leaves
drowning the vast sea of dry sand beneath…

But in the end when these cravings for light,
for a tender love and the freedom, wild
would culminate in grave insanity
what if in my throbbing heart I realize,
the joy and thrill of all these would have paled
against the ecstasy I might have felt
if I could lay my eyes on her painted face,
for one last time before I went away!

The Full Moon

The full moon with her maiden smile
drenched the earth from a cloudless sky
as the distant stars faded behind the glow.

The mellow wind had a sweet smell to it
as if it had just blown over
a dale nearby where Poppies bloomed.

But in that desert of stone, glass and bricks,
held together with iron bars,
a blooming dale was too absurd,
so had it been from the maiden smile too?

A Rebel’s Dream

The dream like Gabriel made them cry aloud
in ecstasy imbued with a sadness, mild,
(for the dream foretold their deaths as well)
as it promised of brighter days ahead
when the only place to see corruption
would be a museum where past legacies
rest and gather freckles of yellow dust,
when treachery and oppression, unjust
would go back into the ground where daisies
and timid grass-flowers would thrive upon,
when the venomous blood would have been shed
and hunger can no longer victimize
the multitudes of humble, jobless crowd.
So they urged us not to give up our hope
and never to abandon this yearning
for better days and brighter days shall come!