Poems by Biswajit Chattopadhay

AMARTYA 

 

A simple question has been haunting me for quite some time.
And I can't get out of it even in sabbatical…
Then I decided to give the ‘Question’ a good proper name...and the name happened to be ‘Amartya’!
Following this there was a pleasant silence...and peace.

But today I found a bespectacled Question looking menacingly at me from my bookshelf.
But the moment I took my eyes off Him and looked elsewhere a big and heavy book of critical theory fell flat on the floor from the shelf.

Luckily, no one was injured except a little dent on the cover of the book...
Then He came.
I mean, came the ‘Answer’ like an angry crazy cat with a swollen furry tail.
I really liked it 
The Answer chased down the Question to the adjacent room and I locked my door from inside.
Still I could hear the sound of heated arguments from the next room but couldnt
understand a bit of their exchanges or occasional laughter…

Baffled I asked myself: If you are born with such a low IQ, why do you dare writing, my dear?

 

LONG AGO 

 

When the sky was greener than the famished beanstalk 
And the earth had a need of your mirth 
The secret line between hope and its mirage was a vanishing red 
And your lips were richer than the purest almond of the town 

You came running to fix my buttonhole 
And I must admit I didn't have the purest soul!

Your teeth were silver with sharpness of killer razor 
Your eyes deeper than the magic river of a Tibetan art 
Your voice was shaky like the whisper of the Garuda hills 
Your fingers reached out for the untamed island of my heart.

Now a picture of yours appears at my public jukebox 
The face resembles you minus the innocent but charming smile 
Four hundred miles is a distance a spider cannot travel in winter 
The cobwebs of a fading brain can only wryly smile.

Long ago you had unclocked the ship of buzzing time 
I stand alone in the grey architecture of my unpublished book of rhymes…