My
mind doesn’t gasp for breath
When
I think there will be nobody to beat his heart out
The
day I’m going to die
The
raging leopard digs out dumb howls
tearing
apart the virginity pre-world darkness over the
heavens,
if
the forecast about his death and doom
at
the fading hours of bright days
goes
up to the blooming of a metaphor of streams
if
any evil disease at the moment
violates
the beauties around,
how
much is he to blame ?
My
eyes were wide open
at
the fiesta of castrating his genital glands,
blind
Red, withdrawal and diarrhoea—all at a time
When
I was about to be overtaken by
cycles
of rebirth under the spell of sunset
With
Ira, Deepa, Geetiara at my side
When,
resting on a secure throne, I felt
the
burning day of revolution close by
The
skyhigh surreality swayed back and forth
under
my feet—
The
alluvial land, miles after miles, on the earth
cracked
up through endless drought.
Who
left these lunar germs
along
the track of my spinal chord ?
who
smeared my eyes with the silver mud of
dreams
?
For
reasons known I would like to be oblivious
of
these cruel symbols
on
the day I’m going to die
would
art and love take a pure course of joint
blooming ?
Youth—make
him senile
in
the water on the land in the air
Make
him sterile
to
the north and south the East and the West
Youth
stormed all the veils of privacy
Not
so sharp was his sense of smell and touch
He
cried for the burns and blazes
of
fire—deaf and dumb
the
handcuffed youth—
at
the fiesta of castrasting his genital glands,
blindfold
in the blue mirage at mid sea
when
sighs of relief brought along the roses
o
spring in a dead garden
My
mind doesn’t gasp for breath
When
I think there will be nobody to beat his
heart out
the
day I’m going to die
I
have seen how painfully
the
genuine fire of man fizzles
out—ghostly and pale
beside
the elusive will-o’-wisp
Man
is scared of flames
We
are, in fact, obsessed with ashes and the Gray
We
feel grand making sea voyages
over
memories of ashes
If
the flowers smell out black and deadly ashes
Many
of us will take it for bliss
A
runway woman falling on her knees
cried
out to me, ‘I am dying,
give
me some more flames of spring
God
bless you.’
Seeing
my white face in those cruel hours
the
flaming ballerinas of will-o’-the-wisp
dance
to their hearts fill
inside
the hearts of our plump and potbellied men
And
just that moment
there
begins the contamination of cold
from
my bruised toe
I’m
going to die just that way
the
flames fizzling out slowly.
Shihab
Sarkar : Poet. Poetry : Lal Jouban Din