Short story slam week 52: READING

I never go out with my son

When he was child, because

Finance did not permit that situation,

King is mind, saint is not my attitude.

Now I do not go out with my grandson,

It is not that finance is not felt enough

For that scope, it is still in scarcity.

Mind has a motive, I can afford it.

I discover that my grandson is waiting for

Something new, reading, writing and playing,

His young mind can marry prized motive

That can spread life like a small butterfly,

And make acquaintance with all basics

Those can bloom with creativity for new world,

But I cannot do that, his parents think

Reading, writing, playing can flourish in curriculum.

I fear trails and tails of that young mind

May travel in barbed fence, and the world

Will see a general view of that custody,

Which preserves obedience to the king.

THE NEGLECT

She is in the hospital bed

She drinks green-coconut-water

Stones just removed from her kidney.

The surgeon enquired

Whether she took plenty of water,

And moderate food.

She was alone at home

With her grandson,

When parents of little one

Are at their working zone,

She finds no time

To take care of her body and mind.

She forgets to sing, she forgets to look,

She forgets to mingle, she forgets to

Emotionally respond to nutrition.

She falls to nature’s retaliation

She is at her faults,

Stones formed in kidney and in gallbladder.

And the worst has been done

She is at loss of strength,

Very organic formation.

Surgery is done; caught in loneliness,

Her random speed has been broken,

Harvesting moon has no promises in her eyes. 

ONE DAY ON THE PATHWAY

Being alone one day

I was walking around

The streets of Kolkata

Then I found

A new building is coming up

In the place of old building

Demolished

And all old furniture

And wooden door and window

Materials are stacked

As if these are antiques

With a hanging notice board

Announcing the activity -

Inviting auction sale

Of all old materials to be checked

For further use

If one likes to repair and reuse

The old valuables, if one can find it feasible.

 

 

I am thinking of my life

I have everything

A house, wife, son, daughter-in-law,

A little grandson,

Yet I am moving alone,

They are theirs,

The baby is theirs,

Wife is in a mood

To farewell everything,

Their eyes cast shadows,

Over the scares and gathering

They want to get benefit,

And I cannot think I am elderly one

To say something valuable

As if I am lonely man walking down roadway,

Thinking of demolished building,

Wherein once lived old residents, with

High spirits and solvency held high

In the time of their sovereignty,

Their power to propagate supremacy,

Now their memorabilia are sold,

As dead great grandmother had not to worry about

What she had one to hold and what she had

Not to possess about on the passage of time.

And in my loneliness,

I am also sold to the art of buying antifreeze of a car

In the equation of theory and data retrieved:

If theory is true, data is true, depending

On hands those are already moved to selling content

That slips down old Sapphire glory

As if harvest morning dismisses cloudy sky.

LIVING BEYOND SHADOWS OF PROPAGANDA

O dear one, my strength is linking to dryness,

Only link, it is my mobile phone
That appears only to voice of a child,
And I feel comfort; as he is able to say, ‘Eei’
My walking with life is full of tufts
And shafts of yellow grass, higher
Above the height of nothingness, yet
I do live as if I am no one upon the land.

For the link, I have to turn hard,

No new garments I bought, wearing only old ones,
I am always pressing my mind for savings,
For paying cost for internet and mobile phone service,
Where I have to collect connections, and
Never varies my mind, even if silver dreams do come,
The only care I do intend for making me contacted
With the boy for hearing his voice on mobile phone,

and to see his pictures on internet social sites.  

As the child, beloved one,

Separated, by some persons of home and abroad,
Lives far away from me,

And as the child is yet to learn speaking to return from war zone,

My agony goes beyond submission and subjugation.
When I speak about need of a doctor for child's treatment,
They shout at me, young managers for the child,
As if I am trying to diverge thinking for well being
Of the child, as he appears to be well,
and he is fit to gain their confidence.

As an old man, my endeavor limited to seeing only window,

And I have to go hiding from their propaganda over shadow.

 

 

 

SENIOR CITIZEN 1

Like a senior citizen, I am living in true sense of the phrase,

It is just to remind me of my living world,

My stories, my pains, my inescapable inwards.

 

It must be needed to submit life certificate,

In each November, the world may know I am surviving,

Just knowing inside, I am living screaming inside.

 

I cannot live in cheers, with my wishes,

As I have to think month after month to buy a laptop,

As my old desktop computer goes out beyond repairs.

 

I have got my identity card, income-proof and some money,

I then go to a computer showroom, to buy new one, on loan,

And I stepped out blank; loan cannot be given to an old man.

 

I have a dream to give my grandson a good health and future,

And perhaps I lost the balance, as parents of the toddler say,

The kid is theirs; they know better ways to make the kid worthy

 

For living with high esteem, I cannot be an educator,

They say, I may be a mute observer, I cannot welcome new age

And the new living pattern, and for my balance, they will give me

 

One sandalwood stick for my morning walking,

My dream is my burn, I have to draw curtains upon my life,

The harder image of life pushes me beyond light.

 

 

 

LOVE OF A GRANDMOTHER

When mother is away on duty,

When baby son is left at home,

When the world needs caring for the infant,

The grandmother becomes beloved one,

She comes and gives bath to her grandson,

Who then soundly sleeps after bottled milk-feeding.

The caring grandmother stays for several hours,

As if she is like a lesson for loving her grandson,

She loves all - her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law,

She does it all the time, today and tomorrow,

Since she came in the family, and remains as guardian,

Emotionally and profoundly she does her duty.

She does not work for money,

She wants peace in the family,

She likes to love and be loved by all,

Yet she is alone as confusion runs inside,

As if she is the blue sky with gentle trust,

That all members do not understand.

She is like a crown upon family-mirror,

Its image does hold no reflections,

She is like a running figure, none can think about,

Sea wave cannot be measured, she is like that,

She is an ordinary woman, a simple housewife,

She likes to embrace pathos for her loved one.

HAPPY SMILING OF GRANDSON

With sweet smile,

The baby stands in love of

Grandmother, happy invention.

She smiles

In her happiness

Behind grandson’s smiling.

Sparkling smiling

Of baby grandson

Drapes across her countenance.

Love of grandmother,

To get her grandson

In sweet smiles, everlasting.  

TO MY GRANDSON

O baby pilgrim, the beauty of the earth,

Do you search love we care first for your marching forward?

When we meditate in yellow aspires, you just arrive in love,

To fill our heart to live more, looking in your innocent new eyes,

Those are beautiful to give way to compose shape of life,

That you need, more syllables of measured steps for growing up.

We leave no stone unturned to keep you best in our endeavor,

To make you a man with black hair, with wide looks of significance,

And you will make threads of knowledge to hold divine earth,

That is the harmony we do desire to live in peace with shining

Of the sun, controls of each footing will not be waste

Over our life, dissolving the river of moving objects of awakening.  

GRANDMOTHER IN LONELINESS

She is grandmother

She knows the worth of baby grandson,

Sometime she is feeling like a picked up flower,

That comes in her mind in bubble moves.

She now is living without him,

Far away to look after her ailing mother.

She feels loneliness, and takes notice of her feeling,

That is reeling under awful rainstorm,

When she sits alone after performing duty for mother,

She thinks of the baby, whom she loves most,

As if she joins hands to pick grass roots of her love,

A frozen lake sends silent voice in grief and pain. 

Taking her time to telephonic talks with his son

Who sends, in long intervals, messages of her sweet grandson,

That is not her sensation of joy, but a short cut

To reach curious looks of naughty grandchild

Who was once her lap when his son and daughter-in-law

Went out of home, and she was glad to look after the baby.

From the dance of baby interfering in her lap,

She sees her dream in glittering of bay’s toothless smiles,

She smiles with him, cuddling deeply with kisses and hugging,

And she does not know computer uses, and

Cannot share in web video sharing with the baby, yet over life,

More blessings she prays for grandson’s smiling all the time.

PROUD GRANDMOTHER

She has to declare, she is proud

Of being new grandmother, the new way,

She enters a new world with great meaning,

On life’s journey in the share and care

Of someone new with little limbs, breathing,

Like flower of legacy, in the bright morning,

She is walking with little loving presentation,

With which she is presenting the human gift,

Grabbing prime of love, with her hands

Filled with new descendant, gentle touch.

Her beautiful eye brows glow with smile,

With proud smiling, lifting the grand baby

Towards the world to feel greetings of love,

Moving all time in her bosom, to hold happy smiling,

She has to declare she has interfered with

Creation of a generation, we are driving all for that.   

GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON

Great love it is and all scenes of blooming

Of love in the window view of varying shades,

Grandmother looks at her grandson, and thinks,

“You are my good breathing in ground source,

You are my soul of expectation for my credence,”

The baby looks at deep sequence looking upright,

His tender limbs and innocent eyes catch promises.

She is witness of three generations –

Her father-in-law, husband, and grandson,

Three roses on the same origin, delightful,                                   

She gets three colors of love, after leaving parents,

The flow that does charm in the stream of family,

That gives birth and starts profile of lives,

That she is getting great promises of ancestry.

                                                                                                                       

The baby in his new looks gets comfort,

In caring lap of grandmother, definitely firm,

And looks at her eyes in askance, so bright,

And grandmother finds loving campaign

That has full and amazed feeling in baby’s eyes,

He is the promise of the future and everything

That life has a dream in celebrating new coming,

It is recognition of loving thrust to go with the sun.