Even now rice does not boil in many kichens of Bengal
Even now many ov ens in Bengal nourish the emptiness
like open graves
Even now in Bengal how many rickety hands
stretch out for a loaf of bread
Idon't know
Idon't know
I neever heard of anyone being murderedin this place
Still every step here bears some very old bloomstains
Lying still, old darknesssweeps the c orners of history
Climbing,
I am going up up up
to the top chamber of this fort like place
to find a skeleton gently swaying
on the worm-eaten velvet robe
like the lungs of a tubercular patient
I take the steps down down down
to the road
fill my lungs with fresh air
How many times must I go up and down?
How many times? I have not signed
a lease with sterike despair
I wanted to be aliv e and fresh like the birds
that sing evenin famine
The mail box in my brain collects lettes
I forget to give them out to their owners
All day long
Icarry a crematoriiumon my face
See the softnesof sunglasses suc ked in
by a paire of eyealways so burning?
I have not saved anything but a few memories
having lost many nights and days in violent gambling
Every time Ipick a rose Ipluck at sorrow.
I never carried a flag exc ept for poetry
I never captured anything but fantadies
Still they call me a rebel
No one cross examines me, still
I se myself in the witness box
It is something I mutter always
I need to decipher my words,
Nobody is following me, no agent of police
but Ishake with violent fear, it seems
somebody is following me all this time
I feel haunted
There are no armed guards to my side
there are no handcuffs holding me
still I see myself
in the dark cell, all alone
I am talking to the man pasted on the wall
or sometimes I remain silent
No bullet pierced my chest
No one stabbed me in the rib
still blood oozes out like the fiery wrath of my forfathers
flowing
silently
always.
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