A Song From Your Village: Poetry

A Song From Your Village

Biju Deka

Why are you here?

that was not the question that he first asked me,

and maybe he meant to know nothing either,

but he was a man

just like another one,

made of furs and dreams,

made of rusts and scars;

iron hearts,

ravine secrets

silhouettes descending in moonlight;

that naked forest;

that satin pride and

water glittering when there is not even any more tomorrows,

why are you here?

among shadows and lightening,

a dismal stature,

a born libertine

while the whole town has moved to tame the windmills!

Why are you here,

if all the horses in your stable are pleading you to devour

one ocean after another!

Why are you here,

even when in that moonlit village,

raindrops fall from the tips of the bamboo leaves?

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Mundane

Biju Deka

When I see them,

selling lemons in that tarred street

and quietly the pieces cut of a lemon,

sunshine,

and tourists,

drawing lines in sands;

shoes talking to the wind or to the tiny smoke

all dressed in blue,

all men are equal to nothing,

for every man there is an eagle,

an eagle not so extinct,

a man not so extinct;

at my doorsteps,

asked about my whereabouts.

I am there somewhere counting mice in the godown;

ever cynical of entire humanity on the face earth!

these people out there,

tall trees and empty heavens

and in their streets or skyscrapers,

time is built,

fate is built,

a manufactured immortality,

as a drowned man leisurely passes away the cigarette smoke.

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Evenings in Calcutta

Ben Zongte

Evenings in Calcutta were a number of things

They were mostly conversations,

the kind that always linger.

Evenings in Calcutta were honest.

They didn't betray you with pleasantries,

they were as they always were,

loud and humid.

Evenings in Calcutta were addictive;

An equilibrium of peace and chaos.

They were the color of a perfectly-made Chai

Skimmed with pale brown pollution.

Evenings in Calcutta were glasses of wine,

the deepest red and the mostly sparkly white.

Evenings in Calcutta were life's lessons

of truthfulness and acceptance

that one's anticipation of a breeze

would only be disheartening

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The Past

Ben Zongte

The past creeps in on pale misty mornings

and like death, envelopes you in a serpentine twine

It suffocates you with flashbacks of vivid betrayals

while your guts churn in disgust.

But I wonder why we allow ourselves this torture.

This torment; This Lamentation

Wouldn't it be best

If we all just turn into salt like Lot's wife

Every time we peered behind.