Poetry, May '14
By Rajib Chakrabarti
Will my emotions ever wake up from this comatose state?
Shall we ever wake up from this state?
The iron islets in his palms
buried my hair in his skin, and yet
signals from deep within
warn me never to unveil.
No scope at all for warming up
in any relationship,
only lethal infection in a web
of endless cooling down.
Barred from every other profession
and hated for usury, well, for which
the virtuous majority
themselves had use;
the non-violent love meat, though the butchers
come from a filthier community.
I am compelled to change the colour
of the smoke again and again;
the heat and the invisible colour
of the fire do not change
an atto-unit.
Though I can get the right quantity
of breeze only if I open the door wide
I open windows of different
sizes when I get a chance.
I look at a rectangle above a square
or at an equilateral triangle
with a faint hope that I’ll find a place
as plastic surgery over his wound
and one day feel his torrid touch
when he forgets himself, though every night
he cleans his lens in a solution
of fear and ignorance.
Rajib
Chakrabarti teaches English and hopes that scientific rationalism and secular
ethics will one day replace religious dogma.