The Snake-Charmer's Life Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

O charmer, where do you lie playing the wooden been music,
Playing so haunting music
And the cobras dancing to the tume of,
Swaying,
I mean the cobras,
White, black and chocolate-coloured!

You tasting the soil, smelling and guessing
When without the been
And catching them
By making smell a root
And the cobras let slip into the bamboo basket.

Risking your life, playing with dangers, show you the spectacle,
But what do you get
At the market-places
Keeping company with the deadly snakes
Whose mere bit can be fatal and may even claim for
But they understand it not.

The lookers-on give not the money
And live you poorly,
Somehow maintaining the family,
Ill-fed and ill-clothed,
But the Bombayan film-makers and musicians
Stealing the music earn they well.

Sometimes coobras bite they and lose you
Your precious life in faith
And the magic fails it.