BASAB CHAUDHURI

This morning
words whispered in my ear—
give us a little space to thrive,
so we may become a poem.
...

So many roads in front of me,
For someone might make a difference.
I am now lost at the crossing—
Could you tell me the shortest route?
...

Will you come to see me when I die?
I know I will die some day,
but the day is not known,
so I cannot invite you in advance.
...

At this moment
bombs are exploding,
smoke billows outward,
people hide indoors,
...

Something works between us two
that neither of us knows for sure.
The road turns at the same time,
a flower starts to speak in rhyme.
...

Newspapers have pretty much lost their importance now,
instant news are made available, every bit digital.
Continuous crunching of digits make sensation
with continuous munching of an appropriate material.
...

If you belong to everyone,
You belong to no one.
That's the design.
That's how it's built.
...

Often I leave my house and go elsewhere,
for work or for some job poorly defined.
I go -
there is no one to accomany me except the sky,
...

Get me a pen -
I will write with it
a love letter
to all of them.
...

A lovely fruit—
the pomegranate holds
punicalagins,
antioxidants,
...

A few steps forward and then coming back,
I pick up pebbles and carefully put them in my pocket -
just to throw them away later, may be a few minutes after
I accumulated them.
...

When it rains, my cataract eyes see more than ordinary,
behind the falling drops, the river disappears,
the horizon comes near,
the grey sky becomes my heart,
...

Do you want me to go through the details of the news?
Does it really matter any more?
A sudden breathlessness;
unconsciousness would have been better -
...

I thought of writing a letter to you -
but I didn't write.
My love, my anger, frustrations,
you name it and they were all mine -
...

Most are dry,
only the waist elastics are still wet.
He has reached the other side of the bamboo pole,
his ducks will return soon.
...

You know a circle,
don't you?

It has a diameter—
...

Just a touch
and I could spring up to life.
I started flowing like a fountain,
sprinkling all around.
...

They tell me:
Why so much trash?
It wearies you,
it bores the others.
...

I have been a failure in life,
a total failure —
before I explain, tell me:
how do you judge failure?
...

Smooth, shiny, spherical—
mass evenly spread,
no corners,
no edges to resist.
...