Poetry

GO photo

By

Pranab Ghosh

Cursed Easter

The scale has got tilted,

The agony of the dead

And the living, weigh high on

The night, at the dead of which

The lonely bird chirps

Chew-it-chew, chew-it-chew.

The body parts were chewed

Alive as blood spilled on the

Alter, the aisle and the corridor.

They had come to celebrate the

Resurrection, but had been

Sacrificed themselves, for cause

Best known to the butchers.

They died to save the day of

The murderers, who scored

Brownies for their paymasters.

Agony apart, when will the

Dead arise to avenge the

Dead and the living?

Agony apart, when will the splinter-hit

Christ beam a smile on the smiling,

Milling crowd looking for a blessing?

Agony apart when will Easters not have

Eggs on its face as humankind lie martyred

At the altar of peace and love!

When will an Easter Sunday wash away

The curse and smile on the multitude?

When will the crucified masses

Resurrect to peace and victory?

Pranab Ghosh

Pranab Ghosh is a journalist, poet, author and translator. He has three published books to his credit. Air and Age (co-author; published from Kolkata), Soul Searching and Other Poems (first solo book of poems, published from Toronto) and Bougainvillea And Other Stories, a book of short stories in English, translated from the Bengali original. His poems have been published in Tuck Magazine, Dissident Voice, Literature Studio Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Leaves of Ink, Weasel Press, Harbinger Asylum, Spillwords, The Piker Press, Visual Verse, Hans India and Setu Magazine, among others. He is married and lives in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.