FORGIVE ME

 

FOUR POEMS ON LOCKDOWN DAYS

1.

BEING AT HOME

Remember it. Wall on the hill. In 2019

I travelled near Rajgir, with a search

For natural heart in scorched daily life.

I feel a challenge to find a place with valve

That changes mind, as it is turned to stone

So long with my burdened shoulders, not

To respond to love, and to flourish it, by

Going at a place outside the crowed that

Created a stony dictum amongst us, it is

To be cracked by a little social distance.

Today it is a reverse plight, four walls

Confined me, flattered by bricks, and

A virus crosses all limits many times faster,

Rocking us to shift at home, not sparing

A single moment to find ourselves own

Outside home, driving me to stay on

Home-stage to perform, sharing and

Breathing with people of own relations,

Not to escape from own cradle of early sky

That created love at the very time of birth.

© Asim Kumar Paul

 2.

THIS WAVE BELONGS TO SAME OCEAN BEYOND THE HORIZON

He wants to find a cure

Not through Burning Ghats,

But through the bright blue horizon

Of hope with blessings of God,

And in a most photogenic way,

The announcement was made.

He made huge arrangements

For peaceful passages to a cured

Journey at right point of

Tall words, no confusion,

Silver images do astonish eyes,

Streets to home, mirrors besieged.

Then a pale blue wave danced down

On the sea beach, nothing can help it,

Down with dream, a new story arrives,

Bringing all things in a line is insulting,

The wave has a belly,

It cannot be glued with head, all is shut.

Air is locked, whisper is bounced

With the lobby, and the wave roars:

“You are strong, love is everywhere.

Look at the wave in front of you.

It tells something beyond you.

Think about another part of the

Same ocean beyond the horizon.”

© Asim Kumar Paul

3.

SONGS OF HOME FRONT

For days long

On city along

One poet writes

Loneliness bites,

And longing strives,

Grey pages thrives,

Another poet sings

Rabindra Sangit.

For home alone,

On living stone,

One friend thinks,

The brighter side blinks,

Wants to go away

As finger tips sway,

To live separately

In a cave remotely,

Home is succinct,

Living is precinct,

Not to go away

To a tea-stall far away,

To a Adda with friends

At regular days’ end,

At a road crossing bend.

A friend thinks so.

On the home front

Some news comes up front,

One friend reads

Available research bids

On virus and makes

Friends aware of new marks.

© Asim Kumar Paul

4.

BEHEMOTH

They tell all to remain locked in home,

To keep up four-mitre distance between

One and another while moving outside

Home in urgency. A long journey, unfamiliar,

Roots and cause of virus shock everyone so long,

Fear begets fear, pain brings smoke, half-killing.

Smear gives the mood that detaches all,

All those episodes try to reveal a truth that

It has some wake up call for change where

There is some link of desire of acquiring

The huge left over assets those are denied

For those who never think of such vast treasure.

These are not adventures of people in

Burning Ghats or of gravediggers, but some

Sort of mischievous space between civilizations

And human control saga, motivated with

Luster of steering wheels of management and win

Over all resources of the earth that has to be proud of.  

It is time now for commons who are victims of it

To work for their benefit by the core of heart, benevolent

Research work under minus 100 degree Celsius lab

To combat hand-in-hand to throw out those who

Pervade peaceful region of common man and the nature.  

After then will begin simple living with food and shelter,

That will be movable and immovable assets, and dream

With blessings of God with air and water, without fear of

Mind, pronouncing everyone is the form of other one.

© Asim Kumar Paul

WALKING FOR FOOD

Something remains untold.

Something remains unattainable.

Something remains hidden.

Something remains unexplored.

Something remains not addressed.

Something remains unsung.

Something remains untold,

This summer someone walks on beach,

And jumps in the sea wave,
Flood of sun rays on beach is not his food,
He has to cook some stuff to eat. 

He finds some unpleasant object in water.

His displeasure is not photographed with it,

His way is not like that of others,

No balcony is there to print his footsteps,

All his stories have chance not to be told.

Something remains unattainable.

This evening someone walks past

Roads, buildings, plazas, hospitals,

His strides stop somewhere on earth,

He cannot keep glaring in social sharing,

He has no wings to fly in Disney land.
He is not stardust to be regarded attainable,
He will get loose, and stay in one corner. 

Long after he goes vanished of sight,

His stories are shifted to unnoticed blur.

Something remains hidden.

When trees are planted on earth,

Someone is the pioneer to prepare

Ground for garden and harvesting,

Fruits and corns are sources of knowledge

Of living and social bondage,

The reaper creates dream,

One day field mice, worms, ants eat away

Everything those are reaped, then onlookers

Smile, even being beneficiaries, do watch

The fallout from hiding, lending no message

That they can judge, and honor rewards,

And try to hide the fact instead, and his

Presence in his world remains hidden,

The knowledge he explored becomes property

Of others who steal it in range of

Propriety, this trick is highlighted as origin.

Something remains not addressed.

Fomenting zeal bounds someone to attend

The long line panorama with all like him,

Their status are mentioned in the resolution,

And finally when work has got progress report,

Total address of him and his clan has not been found

In the right place, not even mentioned

As stakeholders, so phenomenal evidence ignored.

There are performing heroes, can’t utter the story,

They cannot tell their breakthrough in streets,  

Their names and work-styles are at the controls of 

And gone by the heady plights of superiors,

These heroes live in rogue surface sliding out

From protection, not paid up by values, and

They are treated as citric, not allowed to speak,

And forced to reside as manipulated stratum

Like dust under fabulous carpet maintained by people

Living upstairs, those who cannot be brought down

To hear voices of dust, but can walk on sand beach.

Stimulation progressed on soul bounding vehicle

Windows are not always open to nurture freedom.

Disorganized things melt in bad arguments, and

Power bullets mascara never says all are well. Size

Of population maneuvered on size of business

Table and dinner on it causes for trampled commons.

   

DREADFUL IS THE SITUATION

They are waiting down, 
Stuck to self alienation, 
Miles away from ICU Unit

Where their loved one lying in hospital bed,

Because they cannot be visitors,

They are family members, friends. neighbors, 

They can’t come down to hospital,

They are staying at home,

They follow restrictions.

From distance, they look at each other,

Thus they let things go, space between 
One and another, just here to live in repose,
Crowned with social distance therapy,
Not getting warmed by touch, and

Looking in the sky is only to take breath

In this solar system, Mostly in home isolation,
Praying to Almighty God is the only way
For living and spending time on this earth, 
Turning and defying the fear of pandemic virus,

  

Anxiety is in their eyes, tears,

Murmur in silence they are in home.

They cannot go in to see or say good bye,

They cannot assemble in the act of farewell.

They are not detained, they are helpless,

Lung clogged, cough, and fever are the barrier,

They know it. And they do not go near.

Their words are on loose, cannot touch to feel,

Distancing is self quarantine, they can sail

With stars in night breeze, not with family

Closure to wards that means they have to choose

The way that they feels heartache,

Blue sky or blue sea doesn’t leave pride and purpose, .

Human teaching is wrecked.

Syllables of blessings are dethroned,
As if the world changes its realm
by meeting eyes and reading the face. 

The attending nurse sobs, and helplessly,

She guards the door all night, watching the patient,

She gets up on feet to see the patient at every

Sound coming from the patient’s ventilator

In a glass cabin of an isolation ward.

Almighty God is the rescuer.
Only turning up to hospitals, 
People do share gratitude
Showing their support for incredible
Work of doctors and nurses,

May Almighty God bless and

Protect to you all health professionals

Who are fighting against death on front.

Sometimes migratory birds chase

After lurks of fragile promises,

They stroll on higher orders,

No white robe they wear to protect,

They put fingers in the mouth,

Pandemic becomes their living curse.   

Material world is missing.

What we build so long is meaningless,

Losing strength for living,

We are at the mercy of spoiling habits,

Better to worse, step by step,

Then epidemic to pandemic

An unbroken chain,

With its link to invade human cell boundary,

With our nose towards exodus

Of morgues, we straggle as a pebble

On the sea shore for thousand years,

We hang upon frenetic trade balance,

And we cling to broken knob,

The door is open, to dive in death trap,

Hopefully, truth is not lost,

We will begin to ask questions,

Remedy and rescue will be in our arsenal.

The answer will not be demurral.

QUARANTINE, 2020

I believe in nature’s pride,

Because it doesn’t act and

Pin its creation wrong way,

Flowers are in full bloom,

And not drugged to stone,

Universe is not breaking.

We are breaking, without

Touch, being confined in

Quarantine, as we denied

Our existence, so absorbed

In distancing ourselves,

Our activity somewhere

Collapsed, we are terrified.

Being captured in flowers’

Soothing soul, I find a big

Entrepreneur, nature is the

Castle that brings hope

And confidence of our

Survival in silent answer.

A LITTLE REALIZATION DURING MY LONELY TOUR ON THE EVE OF NEW YEAR'S DAY 2020 AT DIGHA SEA BEACH

I always move for surprised moments around me, even leaving behind what I have acquired on this earth. The people around me become annoyed with me, they live vehemently with their way of thinking. And I feel loneliness. Such was the day on 31st December, 2019 and New Year's Day, 2020, too, at Digha. Completely alone with myself only all the way with my low priced DSLR. It was my great experience to stay, at the age of seventy years, in winter at sea beach from 9 pm in the night to following day till 7.30 am, wearing only one small single sweater when atmospheric temperature was 12 degree Centigrade at the sea beach. There was a big experience, in the bus, while talking with a young girl of 1st year student M.Sc. in Vijayanagar University. Thereafter, I sat down on the sitting attire in the modern open auditorium in the Digha sea beach where I met  families, younger youths to talk about love and age, children's guidance, also heard quarrel between a family whether they would buy a Audi car or a BMW car, that was a short spell, I felt some king of distance in them to talk with others if one approaches for mare acquaintance., I did not hear nothing more than that. One coffee boy vendor expressed how his fellow boy vendors were evacuated from their vending places, and he is lucky one to get one space just place his coffee machine to sell coffee to tourists.. and found a large numbers of  young generation enjoying whole night moving on the sea beach road with sounds of the sea wave, twisted with valiant north cold breeze, along with cultural function with fire works, There was effective and sharp police patrolling. I sat on the sitting concrete chair for long time looking at the sea waves in the dark, in searching I can deliberately capture dream of a beautiful life and future with poetic specific poetic image. When I felt cold and fingers were not responsive, I got up from the concrete chair and walked with speed to drive out cold feeling in the body, and after gap of about fifteen minutes, I got warmed and returned to the previous place to sit. And I observed in this time, I had walked about three kilometers at a stretch, but no sweating. And I then felt I am green and tender plant may shoot growing to write another poem to go through my mind. I can run away from family but cannot run away from odds of life and I have to challenge them with aspirations. This simple narrative strikes my mind that time.