Poetry

Ravi Jha photo

By

Utpal Chakraborty

Courtesy

As the tin frame of a Maruti is kept blown so you, the soft paper tiger

blow up your colourful moustache, your fragile muscle,

It’s behind the paper that you have your own cave.

He who is a true forester has a wooden saw in his hand.

Due to the fear of the wild beasts holding quivering in one hand

And darkness on the other you look around for death and disease.

Your helplessness is proved in your suicidal sword.

As days roll by, nurtured in your poison,

Your stamina breaks into pieces by attacks and counterattacks.

Those you have considered wild beasts have unitedly

Pushed you out of the cave in the forest.

Those whom you have called wild animals or hated beasts of prey

Will now teach you the courtesy, manners of living and staying gay.

Beasts of Prey

The way you have given life to earth, the way you have made us sing for nothing, the way you have easily adorned the feet of wood with ghungurs, the way you ask the leaves to yield breathing roots in the stones, the way you call the winds and tell the inerts to keep mum,

The way you bind coloured boats on the chest of the void, the way you dig out light from the mine of darkness, the way you are lost to pour jewels under the water, the way the dream of the earth is purified by the sun of tender joy,

Why do you in the same way draw unpainted caves in villages and towns? Why do you hitch the chariot to a high-riser, why do you spread the fireflies on the mat and you yourself put iridescent hues on the horizon?

Where tree means faith, sterilizers are some of their roots,

Why do some of their branches spread so much of poisonous fruits?

Speed

The way the long-distance train wants to lose its weight by always accelerating its speed,

I also run at that speed and realise the meaning of it.

It’s speed that makes me light to show me the way to light.

The path the hare takes, the tortoise also recourses without fight.

The trees also tread that way to bloom flowers

Everything runs at its own unit ceaselessly and ceasing at times.

The points become seas and enormous.

To take mind off the body

I run at a breakneck speed from one work to the other, run from world to world.

The more I get lightened I gradually find myself out.

This is how I write life, stay awake in the body of the mind.

The speed I’m in for ages, I know the world in brief

Is getting crowded with the fruits of that grief.

Utpal Chakraborty

I am a teacher of English language and literature, a fiction writer, an author of academic interest and a poet. I was born in a village of Howrah district and live in Barasat near Kolkata.  Graduating from Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission Residential College with English as honours I did my masters from Calcutta University in English literature and thereupon started teaching in different schools. I write both in Bengali and English and have authored 12 books on English Grammar and Composition meant for school students. My book ‘Concept’ deals with rhetoric and the art of substance writing with critical appreciation for unknown poems and prose excerpts. It is meant for the English honours students. Several of my Bengali poems and articles have been published in different magazines including Bengali dailies.