ধর্মদ্রোহী

ঝিনি
তোমার চোখ দুটো আমায় রাজদ্রোহী করেছিল একদিন বিকেলে
রাজ ঐশ্বর্যের আশা দেখিয়েছিল ওই চোখদুটো...
যা পৃথিবী ভুলে গেছে বহুকাল।
ধ্বংসের ভয় ছিলনা সেদিন। ছিল শুধু প্রত্যাশার আকুতি,
বির্ধমি প্রেমের সাক্ষরতা ছিল তোমার চাহনিতে
অলস ভাবে টেনে নিয়ে গিয়েছিল এক যাদুকরের গুহায়
সেখান থেকে শহর দেখা যায়না, গঙ্গার জলে মৎস্য কন্যারা জলকেলি করে
ব্রিগেডে কবি সম্মেলন হয়।
গভীর, গহন সেই চোখে শরতের মেঘ ওড়না হয়ে ভাসে
রাত হটাৎ থেমে যায়, বাতাসে বেজে ওঠে মল্লহারের সূর
আর সেই নিশ্তব্ধতা চিরে তোমার চোখ আদেশ দিয়েছিলো
আমায় পাপ করতে...পাপ করেওছিলাম,
কারন তোমার চোখে দেখেছিলাম বিশ্বাসের আগুন
যেখান থেকে আমার অনুভূতিগুলো একে একে ফিনিক্সের মত জন্ম নিচ্ছে।
তুমি আমার কাছে রাত্রি চেয়েছিলে
আমার যৌনতা জ্বালিয়ে তোমার জন্য রাত্রি এনে দিয়েছিলাম
ঠিক এইখানে যেখান ওরা সভ্যতাকে খুন করেছিল।
সেদিন মত্ত্ব হয়ে তোমার চোখে
দেখেছিলাম প্রেম, আত্মাহুতি, কলঙ্ক্‌......সুগটিত, উচ্ছল, উদ্দাম
যা ভবিষ্যতের অন্ধকার চিরে ধিকিধিকি করে জ্বলে।
তোমার চোখে হয়ত সেদিন আমি পুরহিত বা পাপী ছিলাম
আজ সেই ছোখেই আমি ধর্মদ্রোহী হয়ে গেলাম?

১৬ই ডিসেম্বর, ২০১৩

তুমি জান যে তুমি অপূর্বসুন্দরী
কি ভাবে জানলে?
যে ভাবে সব নারী জানে,
পুরুষের চোখের দর্পণে
নিজের প্রতিফলন দেখে।
...

দেখ, তুমি অপূর্বসুন্দরী,
আজ থেকে আমার প্রত্যেকটা রাত্রি, প্রত্যেকটা অনুভূতি
তোমার খানসামা, খিতমতগার, তোমার দাস।

Do you know
How much hunger stays concealed in a loaf of bread
How many dreams die captive inside a prison wall.
How much pain lies alone while dying in a hospital bed
How many seas does it take to make a raindrop ...
How many skies die along with a bird
How many kisses does a woman conceal in her lips
How much light does blindness rob
How much more would she keep me out of her self
What difference would writing poetry do in these troubled times.

Translated by Deepanjan Banerjee from Nabarun Bhattacharya's poem!

Palestine

Palestine
Every night your moon comes up
In a helmet.
Every morning your sun shows up ...
In a bullet proof jacket.

Your Gazan stars shiver silently in anticipation of gore
Your morning dew is visibly dry with distress.
Napalm filled clouds patrol your alleys
Instead of children.
Rivers of blood decay as corpse on your beds.
The scavenger birds screech in sheer delight
As the scream of an eagle squadron splits your horizon
Eagle bombers come laying embers in your space.
But all is quiet. There’s no panic.
Death and destruction has made all this commonplace.
Flame and Ice taste the same to your children
Only tombestones now separate your life and death.
I see you have built new pyramids out of
Human skull.
And a blind Sphinx stands in guard over them.

Every night
I dream of a radiant white rose.
I dream of a cherubic blue sky of democracy
I dream of labour’s rejoice
In communal festivity under this sun...
I dream of a content evening
That melts into a night of mellow slumber

But there is no trace of it anywhere
No sign nor symbol designs the preface to my dreams.
Only numerous scavengers feasting on my dreams every night.

A wish (Sharjah 2014)

He is your window now, perhaps you can see heaven
Through that window
Perhaps you are flying...
I wish for nothing higher dearest
Just kiss my madness once more
Then go to him
I shall stand here naked with my shallow bones.

Zero Hour (A few lines on my dark side)
Come Gargee, Come my friend, come see my cubic existence.
Gargee would you call it living? Would you call it mortality?...
Or is it my final game of chess
Between the dying and the dead?
I have phony page 3 smoke that glides through my scalded heart. Every Evening.
I have a banker’s blood that denies the existence to my heart.
I have sat crouched like a dog at the reprobate feet of this world
To find the bitch in it.
Like a roach I have walked side by side with other roaches in this city,
Like a mosquito I have flown alongside other malignant mosquitoes of the parish.
In genuine darkness I have dived longingly inside a woman
Just to find that I never did have any living quarters there.

I have gone to placid theatres in my Coca Cola dreams
Dressed like that queer columnist.
I have blown away the scenes of deceit like a weak candle.
I have no animated camphor in my sweat Gargee
That would enrage me.
What would you call this Gargee?
I have tried to crucify myself in my insignificant bedroom
I have tried to understand the suffering of Christ.
I have wanted to bloom like a flower in your landscaped garden
To see if I could fall in love with you.
I have wiped off my inheritance and hierarchy like the 6 pm sweat of a rickshaw puller
I had sadly fallen asleep at my grave instead of dying for you.
Gargee this is how I had lived with you.
Just like stray kids swimming underwater at Dhakuria lakes.
Just like a pervert begging for a life lying next to a couple nauseatingly making love at midnight.
I have four walls that have lost time and dignity.
Its worn out rabid existence is still so dear to me.
I have a dead tree carrying the memory of a long ago dead spring.
I have people calling me unforgiving names.
I have a bundle of your letters partly devoured by a team of right wing termites.
I have a curse that makes me that makes me unyielding.
I have that final possession that I have tonight put at stake at your alter
For that personal zero hour with you.
I didn’t want to tell this to you Gargee.
But my winters are slowly getting colder.
I have a covetous thirst that parches me every night that I have never felt before.
I have a rodent smeared darkness in my saline quarters.
I have a mind stained with sin and death.
For I have lost my memories at a cheap Dharmatalla bar.
I have the sound of accusing sirens when I pray or when I kill women.
I have two hands that like strangers rarely follow my commands.
Rarely do I feel that they are mine.
I have eyes that like invalids stare at their actions like a Venetian Crystal
Waiting for that zero hour with you.