{"id":17716,"date":"2025-07-06T16:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/?p=17716"},"modified":"2025-07-06T16:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:07:54","slug":"poems-1311","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/poems-1311\/","title":{"rendered":"Biswajit Chattopadhyay"},"content":{"rendered":"

My secret desire<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The paucity of words don’t hurt me anymore.
\nPerhaps I have spent a lot of them, recklessly in my grammar classes or for some hated friends in the defunct what’s app group or for something not worth remembering.
\nI would rather describe this morning in a different way, in a different language without the usual vowels and consonants.A new language of broken sounds and innocent laughter with occasional sobbing that will trigger some response from the dizzy flowers of the roadside plantation, some quick but meaningful gesture from the ageing birds from the balcony of the deserted houses of the old city I had left many light years ago.<\/p>\n

From the day I started forgetting things, names, phone number,date and time I knew I will need a new language to live at peace in this new world with a slow dying brain.<\/p>\n

But believe me the babbles of newborn babies are getting more meaningful… the murmur of leaves, the sound of the ancient river, horse’s whisper,the changing colour of the long summer night,a pale hazy morning looks easy to my eyes and ears.<\/p>\n

But amongst the ruins of my battleship I will never forget that letter, the last handwritten letter you had written to me some sixty years ago.
\nThose childish but painful words still hurt me more than the arthritic left knee,a sore that lasts beyond time.
\nYour faint hint of a smile never eludes me and will float like a pale white cloud in the horizon for ever.
\nBut the passive reluctance in your gesture reminds me of a cobweb in the window of an asylum where a robotic nurse had planted the picture of a starry night in the bedside mirror..
\nI was able to make a great escape from the hell but lost my name and identity for good.
\nBut still I have saved some money to feed myself with a bread and banana,few cups of tea, occasional eggs and some old music stored in a stolen mobile phone.<\/p>\n

Forgetting is not bad … It is a new learning tool to those without baggages… a life without medicine, without love, without dignity but with more freedom like a lone fox dancing in moonlight.
\nSome blurred images come and go with an approching dimness of a wooden lantern where acceptance is the rule and the ruler unrecognizable..<\/p>\n

But a secret desire remains…to touch your pale dry lips only once with my frail index finger and to say a last goodbye to the world of rational words and disappear like a powerless vulture from a land of carcasses to it’s last journey into oblivion…<\/p>\n

From Talky House to Beadon street <\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember those days in “Talky Show House”
\nWhen I was young and the earth was green
\nAnd we had played a game of cat and mouse.<\/p>\n

Nobody won and my slate is clean
\nOf my first stint with Rosemary in…’ Blow Hot & Cold’
\nThe crush of autumn and David Lean!<\/p>\n

Those halls are down or already sold
\nStill the desire remains to go and see
\nSome happy memories and a few moments.. “bold”. <\/p>\n

So we decide to keep our Friday free
\nIn the evening in this sweltering heat
\nTo go and watch a Bangla film <\/p>\n

*’Star’of North was our last retreat.
\nThe lone white pigeon of Beadon Street!<\/p>\n

Dreams…1<\/strong><\/p>\n

The
\nWorld within
\nMe breaks open
\nFor free..finding none
\nBut fragrance of childhood
\nLike nectar,songs or erotica
\nKeep coming…of our fights
\nBlisters,infatuation and red light
\nOur long parade,red book and delayed masturbation
\nTill stars break down from sky…<\/p>\n

Humbled by the geometry of light
\nWhite and painful…of eyes
\nwithout eyeballs,
\nAnd missing a galaxy of new dark particles
\nWithin or without the
\nTraveling energy
\nFinally
\nGone!<\/p>\n

Beautiful losers<\/p>\n

To all those beautiful losers…
\nMay I ask you to quietly lie
\nOn the city of lust and winners
\nAnd let the sky mourn and cry…<\/p>\n

Let the winners take it all
\nMoney and the headless crown
\nAnd all those privileged men
\nAt the cost of your blood stained gown…<\/p>\n

Your mother is there for you
\nIn the graveyard near an ancient tree
\nYour nation still mourns for you
\nFrom mountains to the breathless sea.<\/p>\n

Winners die of venom of unpaid guilt
\nBeautiful losers will never quit.<\/p>\n

Yamuna<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have never made her my Yamuna
\nBut look .. she is lying on the highway in the guise of a lame road with the pungent odor of earthen bhar of red tea and false Petrol in her body!<\/p>\n

On their way towards temple people try to acquire some virtue from her dead skin and give her a bow.<\/p>\n

Arunava and I had visited Addyapith last evening to see the tub and the tombstone…<\/p>\n

I have never called her Yamuna, by any means ..
\nShe had always been thirsty … like a raging river.<\/p>\n

Addyapith & the offerings<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a solution when an error is found in a question of trigonometry…
\nErrors do appear in the corrected list of a statistical database too.
\nThis is the rule so worship the emperor of error with flowers, jaggery sweet cakes and wood-apple leaves.<\/p>\n

The shameless quadruped gate keeper of Addyapith temple knows this pretty well and in return gets a share of the holy offerings from the temple.<\/p>\n

Even in the sacred template of literature such robbery is in practice… <\/p>\n

Only a solitary man walks all alone with a walking stick in his hand <\/p>\n

On his road to eternity he is in possession of the ignorant key for a lock
\nthat will never open.<\/p>\n

A swollen gum & some analgesic memories <\/strong><\/p>\n

My gum and a submerged tooth asked me a question. <\/p>\n

I replied: if I don’t give you an answer?<\/p>\n

They made me feel their presence inside me<\/p>\n

And I was forced to go back to Borges for ‘The Secret Miracle’.<\/p>\n

My young dentist is the son of his dentist father.<\/p>\n

His twin brother is a spiritual optometrist who doesn’t change my lens <\/p>\n

I think I have been undone by a small stone inside the brocolli leaves <\/p>\n

And the first wind of the morning reminds me of cooler spring.<\/p>\n

While my gum and the hidden tooth piece conspire against me<\/p>\n

An intelligent ‘someone’ brings out a poem from my analgesic memory..<\/p>\n

Life in a bus stop <\/strong><\/p>\n

I stand alone <\/p>\n

In a desolate bus stop <\/p>\n

My road is a thick layer of snow <\/p>\n

And my destiny is not in my hands<\/p>\n

Still I have bought a bucket of flowers for you <\/p>\n

A bus is coming to me from a distance <\/p>\n

To take me to a new world of sun and light <\/p>\n

My phone has stopped buzzing inside my pocket <\/p>\n

May be it’s dead <\/p>\n

But my flowers are still alive <\/p>\n

Life is like the road or the bus stop or the solitary man waiting for a miracle <\/p>\n

I may board the bus <\/p>\n

I might not be able to make it <\/p>\n

But you have time in your hands<\/p>\n

Will you wait for me ?<\/p>\n

The doorman and the cafe <\/strong><\/p>\n

The doorman knew the exact time
\nWhen we can’t sit together face to face
\nAnd order a glass of soda with lime
\nAnd sip with a straw in utter disgrace..<\/p>\n

Inam couldn’t sit with Sofia alone
\nSanjukta had her reasons to disagree
\nWith Chinmoy about the Pahalgam massacre
\nWhen someone from the shadow shouted at me.. <\/p>\n

To read ‘kalma’ aloud to which I had obliged
\nBut I read my poem in a different accent
\nAnd the shadow fired some flowers at ‘rupashi bangla’
\nBut the vdo of the show could not be sent..<\/p>\n

While everyone present had something to say <\/p>\n

The doorman closed the cafe for the day…<\/p>\n

When an ageing clown conducts a poetry festival <\/strong><\/p>\n

Kushal’s words remain unspoken in the festival’s hall
\nA morbid silence echoes in the air of silent rejection
\nSomelekha misses out with her depth of unadultareted emotion
\nAnd Inam with his precision of words looses out to his libidonous cat!<\/p>\n

The judge’s court remain blind to the beauty of the sullen art
\nTheir selection is a mystery..of agreeable choices
\nThe poet overlooked expresses a sigh of relief
\nThe director of festival declares:we are the best!<\/p>\n

An innocent invited poet enters the hall braving the summer heat
\nThe clown of the show stands up to read his poem in hushed silence..<\/p>\n

My Wednesday evening <\/strong><\/p>\n

My Wednesday evening at Shyambazar,Dreamland clinic
\nWhere the fluorescent lights are hanging from the overhead roof
\nA few guests have come with some poetry and healing balm
\nTheir faces reflect the story of unconditional help and hope.<\/p>\n

The air is thick with anticipation and the odour of antiseptic lotion
\nA young couple holds hands, their eyes locked in a bout of unadulterated love
\nAn elderly woman flips through the pages of an old magazine
\nPerhaps she knows the head of the clinic from days unheard.<\/p>\n

Arunima wanted to die but is still alive
\nShe knows her mitotic renal cells can gift her another five years
\nNow she councells those men and women who are at bay
\nAnd she pays the coffee bill of a doctor and his handsome mates..<\/p>\n

My Wednesday evening is filled with laughter and tear
\nFriends and enemies are free to join without fear..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My secret desire The paucity of words don’t hurt me anymore. Perhaps I have spent a lot of them, recklessly in my grammar classes or for some hated friends in the defunct what’s app group or for something not worth remembering. I would rather describe this morning in a different way, in a different language […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-111"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17718,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17716\/revisions\/17718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abahaman.com\/abahaman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}