What Chance

What Chance

You were waiting by a doorway
for the bus—and smiled at me.
And I at first ignored this—
until you came to mind.
I only then responded—
but your eyes were smiling still.

   

And later, you had dropped by,
for half an hour or so.
Our hands had touched, so briefly—
with a current passing through.

For a quarter of a century,
I have seen you come and go—
so near and yet so distant—
and always in my mind.

There’s a bond that long has linked us,
in the strangest kind of way.
It has kept us always tethered,
but always still apart.

I have seen your bloom, your fading.
I have memorized your face—
the curving of your eyelids—
your planes and shapes and shades.
 
There were dreams I had of holding
your form within my arms—
and I always then dismissed these
as idle thoughts that passed.
I even dreamt we had kissed, once,
but I smiled—and said, “What chance!”
 
2017 January 27th, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York
   

A Love That’s Unrequited

 
A Love That’s Unrequited
 
A love that’s unrequited
is dismissed as just an ache
by those who’re unaffected,
yet the one whose love is spurned
can either then be lessened
or be deepened by the burn.

And though it’s unproductive
in the realm of matter, yet
it still can have its children
in the hearts and minds of men
and women who are hurting
but can then express that pain.
 
And one may write her verses,
while another quietly works,
but yet another, pining,
may be driven to despair
or even to a madness
that could lead her to her death.
 
Yet most survive rejection,
and can still find love again.

We take that love too lightly
that we fail to recognize,
but learn to love more deeply
when rejected in our love.
 
2016 August 23rd, Tue.
(last 4 lines of 3rd stanza
and the 2 lines of the 4th stanza
added August 27, Sat.)
Brooklyn, New York
 

Dur Theke Prem--দূর থেকে প্রেম

এটা শুধু একটা কাব্যিক রোমান্স, আমার নিজের সাধারণ জীবন যাপন থেকে খুবি দূরে৷
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দূর থেকে প্রেম

আহা, সুন্দরী! দেখেছি তোমারে
দূর থেকে, পড়েছি প্রেমে৷
যা কিছু বলার, তোমার চাহনে
রয়েছে কন্ঠে থেমে৷

মুগ্ধ হয়েছি তোমার দৃশ্যে,
ভক্ত হয়েছি আমি৷
গেয়েছি কীর্তন, এতদিন ধরে,
জানিনা কি করে থামি৷

বলেছি নিজেকে, মর্ত নারীকে
করেছ মনে মনে দেবী৷
এ পাপের কারণে, ভুগবে৷ তবুও
নমেছি তোমারে, দেবী৷
  
নিরাকার গুরুর গুণগান গেয়ে,
মাথা নত করে যে,
বুঝবে কি কখনো প্রেমের ধর্ম,
যতই উদার সে?
  
মাটি থেকে বানানো প্রতিমায়, উপোসে,
অঞ্জলি দেয় যারা,
সইবে কি, তাই বলে, আমার দেবীকে,
যতই মেনেছে তারা?
  
চুপিচুপি কেবল গেয়েছি গীতি৷
লুকিয়ে করেছি পূজো৷
তোমার পায়ের ধূলি, ও প্রিয়া,
চুমিয়ে হয়েছি দ্বিজ৷

দেখোনি আমার মর্মে, তুমি
শোনোনি আমার গান৷
জানো নি তোমার চাঁদের মুখের
জোয়ারভাটার টান৷ 
  
নিমেষের হাতের স্পর্শে অথবা
চোখের মিলনে যখনো
জ্বলেছে বিদ্যুৎ, বুকে ও অঙ্গে,
স্তব্ধ রয়েছি তখনো৷

যদি কোনো দিন মনে পড়ে সেই
ইতস্ততঃ আমার,
হেসেও তখন ক্ষমা কোরো একে—
এই দ্বিধা ভরা প্রেমিক তোমার৷

রবিবার, ৫ই জুন, ২০১৬ খ্রি
(চতুর্থ, পঞ্চম ও অষ্টম স্তবক: বৃহস্পতিবার, ৯ জুন)
ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক

   

Passion-II

Passion-II 

She told herself that he was worth no more

Of all her tears and unrequited love,

Remembering the many scars she bore—

Betrayals, witnessed by the gods above,

That she had only learned of later, yet

So painful then, with wounds she’d buried deep,

That even now she still could not forget

Those gifts of venom that were hers to keep.

And yet, she loved him, more than honor, life—

That man who would not take her as his wife,

But stole her heart as none had done before

Or ever since.  She only wanted more

Of what he’d tossed her, knowing she was his.

So love was hate, as passion often is.

2016 May 14th, Sat.

Brooklyn, New York

----------------------------------------------------

For perhaps a more pleasant note, see:
 
Passion
  
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/05/passion-i-heard-evening-moan-in-deep.html
   

Exile-III

 
Exile—III
  
I have tasted of your juices,
I have savored of your scents.
So your scents are in my nostrils,
And your tastes upon my tongue.

I have breathed in. Inhalation
Has carried you within me.
I have breathed out. Exhalation
Has given you my love.

It is said that we are mindful
Of the things that are at hand.
But with distance, there's a longing
That the lovers understand.
    
******
  
I have lusted for your textures,
I have yearned for all your sights.
I have dreamed of you in daytime,
I have tossed for you at nights.
  
Has my love been unrequited?
That only you can know.
I have felt your heartbeat quicken,
I have seen your motions slow.
     
Your were near and yet were distant.
You are far and yet are near.
And your absence is a presence
That is hard for me to bear.
       
When I left you for another,
Did you notice, did you cry?
Did you ask then for a reason?
Did you ever wonder why?
     
No, you didn't even notice,
For you'd hardly notice me,
Who was one of many millions
That by chance had come to be.
  
But you gave me life and fed me,
And I grew beneath your sky.
And I never really left you,
Though it seems that now I lie.
     
For you are my native country,
You're the land of all my dreams.
Though I seem to be so distant,
It isn't what it seems.
       
You are with me still in music.
I can hear you in my voice.
In my exile, you are in me.
So I dream, and I rejoice.
     
*******
      
As a tree, that is uprooted
And is planted in a soil
That is foreign, may not flourish,
So the worker and his toil.
    
As a mite upon your body,
As a mote upon your skin,
I was one you'd hardly notice,
But I've borne you in my soul.
       
As the years have stretched to many,
And the memories start to fade,
I can delve within and find you,
So I once again am whole.
     
2016 January 23rd, Sat.10:25 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
--------------------------------------------
  
For a more rational view of this, see the short piece:  Exile--II  
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/04/exile-ii.html
 
For a rather wistful, resigned reflection on this, see: Exile
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/03/exile.html  
   

Broverbs of Pain

Broverbs of Pain

How red the wind-tossed roses blow,
How sharp, their curving thorns!
And just as red, the blood will flow
From thumbs of eager hands.

How beautiful she does appear
To those who yearn for her!
What misery, they do not know,
That yearning might confer!

******

How beautiful, that song of love
That’s sung in soundless tones.
How silently that river flows
That runs so swift and deep.

******

How tender is the heart of love,
How hard, the one of hate.
And in-between is callousness—
That leaves us to our fate.

******
 
Who murders, knows what he has done
And all his life repents,
Unless he’s blinded by that fog
That makes of Earth a hell.

 ******

Though pleasures might be shallow, short,
While pain is deep and long,
There’s joy that’s true that melds with woe
And so gives rise to song.

******

As sculptures, paintings get their depth
From shadows more than light,
So also we are deepened more
By pain than by delight.

******
   
Look not to me for happiness,
But only more of grief.
Of all the happiness you’ve earned,
I might be called the thief.

******

I met a man in a hopeless state—
Or so it seemed to be.
Yet when I greeted him, he smiled
And kindly looked on me.

******

There’s comfort in a misery
To which we are accustomed,
But newer woes can startle us
And shatter our repose.

******
 
We yearn for things we cannot get,
Neglecting what we had.
And some of us, on knowing this,
Might even feel regret.

******
   
When it’s cold and gray and raining,
In the dreary winter climes,
We remember then the sunshine
And the warmth of bygone times.
 
When the sun is high and blazing,
In the heated tropic zone,
We have dreams of clouds and rain then—
And of winters we have known.

2016 January 8th, Fri., 8:30-9:30 pm
David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center
Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street
New York, New York
(added later in Brooklyn: 4th quatrain 
and 3rd, 4th & 5th quatrains from end)
  

a big fat ingrate, giving the finger to the notorious multi-
-billionaire David H. Koch, in the theater named after him
at the Lincoln Center, New York City, 2016 January 8th
(Click on the image for a slightly better view of the degenerate,
and then click on the white X at the top right of the black
background to return to this post.)

  

Phirechi Abar—ফিরেছি আবার—Returned Again

 
Because of end-of-term pressures from my job,  I could not do my usual transcription into Roman letters and the translation into English.  I have included Google's machine transcription and translation, available at http://google.com/translate.

Google's machine transcription faithfully reproduces the traditional Bengali spelling. This could help speakers of other Indo-Aryan languages decipher the content. It might also help those with some knowledge of Sanskrit.

The transcription might, however, cause readers not familiar with Bengali to mispronounce the words. This could still result in a sort of archaic, vowel-rich pronunciation that is musical and enjoyable. 
   
Note added (2015-07-12):  I have now lightly edited Google's "machine transcription" to remove the unnecessary short a's. These have long ceased to be pronounced.  In this piece, these not-pronounced short a's were almost all at the ends of words. 

I also had to add one short a, within a word (the second a in baẏas). 
  
Note that all short a's should, in this transcription, be pronounced as a rounded vowel, intermediate in  duration between the standard British pronunciations of the vowels in the words "pot" and "fall".  
  
Some other points on pronunciation should be borne in mind for this transcription scheme.  One of these is the merging, in standard spoken Bengali, of the three unvoiced sibilant sounds (the letters for which, ś, ṣ and s, are still preserved in the spelling) into what is usually represented by the sh cluster in English spelling.   
  
Please see the "Note on the Machine Transcription" at the very end of the post at http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2015/07/beside-seaxagor-tire-sagar-tire.html .
  
To conform to standard English usage, I have also added capitalization to proper names, and (where preceding periods had been left out by the machine transcription) at the start of sentences.

Turning next to Google's machine translation—it is far from the best, being often hilariously off.  But it will have to do for now.

With apologies,

Arjun

----------------------------------------------------

ফিরেছি আবার
  
বলেছিলে যা, চোখের ইশারায়,
সেটা সত্যি কি না মিথ্যে,
জানি না, জানি না, তবুও
রয়েছে জানবার ইচ্ছে৷
  
******
    
কতদিন, কত বছর ধরে, তোমাকে
দেখেছি দূর থেকে৷
কত চাহন, কত সুখের আশা
রয়ে গেছে এই বুকে৷
  
মাঝে মাঝে ক্ষনিকের মিলন,
হঠাৎ নিকটে দেখা৷
যা বলার ছিল, হয় নি বলা,
নিমেষের চোখাচোখি ছারা৷
  
দেখেছ কি তখন, চোখের ঝিলিকে,
পুরোনো প্রেমের আগুন?
মনে হয়েছে, আঁখির লোকানো ভাষায়,
তুমিও বলেছ কিছু৷
          
বয়্স বেড়েছে৷ প্রেমের সময়
মনে হয় কেটে গেছে কবে৷
তবুও দেখা হলে, মনে পড়ে আবার
প্রথম দেখা হয়েছিল যবে৷

****** 
  
শহর ছেড়ে, গিয়েছিলাম দূরে৷
ভেবেছিলাম, পাবো ক্ষমা৷
পাই নি, পাই নি৷ ভুলি নি তোমাকে,
চিরকালের প্রিয়তমা৷
   
তুমি আর আমি হেঁটেছি পাসে,
সপ্নর জগতে শুধু৷
হেসেছি সেখানে তোমার সঙ্গে,
চেখেছি প্রেমের মধু৷

সপ্ন কবে যে বাস্তব হবে,
জানি না, জানি না, হায়!
তোমার খোঁজে, এসেছি আবার
সপ্ন যেখানে যায়৷
   
কতদিন, কত বছর ধরে,
দেখেছি তোমাকে দূরে৷
ফিরেছি আবার, পুরোনো মহলে,
দূর দিগন্ত ঘুরে৷

******  
  
বলেছিলে যা, চোখের ইঙ্গিতে,
সেটা সত্যি কি না মিথ্যে,
জানি না, জানি না, তবুও
রয়েছে জানবার ইচ্ছে৷ 
  
সকাল ১০:২৩, শনিবার ৬ জুন, ২০১৫ খ্রি
বেন্সন্হার্স্ট, ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক 

----------------------------------------------------

Phirēchi  Ābār

Balēchilē yā, cōkhēr iśārāẏ,
sēṭā satyi ki nā mithyē,
jāni nā, jāni nā, tabu'ō
raẏēchē jānbār icchē.

******

Katadin, kata bachar dharē, tōmākē
dēkhēchi dūr thēkē.
Kata cāhan, kata sukhēr āśā
raẏē gēchē ē'i bukē.

Mājhē mājhē kṣanikēr milan,
haṭhāṯ nikaṭē dēkhā.
Yā balār chila, haẏē ni balā,
nimēṣēr cōkhācōkhi chārā.

Dēkhēcha ki takhan, cōkhēr jhilikē,
purōnō prēmēr āgun?
Manē haẏēchē, ām̐khir lōkānō bhāṣāẏ,
tumi'ō balēcha kichu.
   
Baẏas bēṛēchē.  Prēmēr samaẏ
manē haẏ kēṭē gēchē kabē.
Tabu'ō dēkhā halē, manē paṛē ābār
pratham dēkhā haẏēchila yabē.
 
******
 
Śahar chēṛē, giẏēchilām dūrē.
Bhēbēchilām, pābō kṣamā.
Pā'i ni, pā'i ni.  Bhuli ni tōmākē,
cirakālēr priẏatamā.
 
Tumi ār āmi hēm̐ṭēchi pāsē,
sapnar jagatē śudhu.
Hēsēchi sēkhānē tōmār saṅgē,
cēkhēchi prēmēr madhu.

Sapna kabē yē bāstab habē,
jāni nā, jāni nā, hāẏ!
Tōmār khōm̐jē, ēsēchi ābār
sapna yēkhānē yāẏ.
 
Katadin, kata bachar dharē,
dēkhēchi tōmākē dūrē.
Phirēchi ābār, purōnō mahalē,
dūr diganta ghurē.

*******
 
Balēchilē yā, cōkhēr iṅgitē,
sēṭā satyi ki nā mithyē,
jāni nā, jāni nā, tabu'ō
raẏēchē jānbār icchē.

Sakāl 10:23, Śanibār 6 Jun, 2015 Khri
Bēnsanhārsṭ, Bruklin, Ni'uẏark

----------------------------------------------------

Returned again

That said, the eyes of the hinting,
What is true is false,
I do not know, I do not know, but
There is the desire to know.

*******

How long, how many years, you
Seen from a distance.
Desiring much, much happiness hope
The chest remained.

Sometimes momentarily reconciled,
Suddenly appeared near.
That is to say, not to say,
Referred without moments.

What he saw, the eye jhilike,
Love the old fire?
It seems, hidden in the eye,
You said something.
       
Increased age. Love Time
When it is cut.
Yet when you meet, remember again
Can first met.

*******
 
Out of the city, and went away.
When I was forgiven.
I did not, could not. I have not forgotten,
Love forever.
 
I walked close to you,
Only in the world of dreams.
Laughed with you there,
Cekhechi love honey.

When will that dream real,
I do not know, I do not know, alas!
Your looks, come again
Where dreams are.
 
How long, how many years,
I have seen far away.
Returned again, the old quarters,
Around the horizon.

******
 
That said, a hint of the eyes,
What is true is false,
I do not know, I do not know, but
There is the desire to know.

10:23 morning, Saturday, June 6, 2015
Bensanharst, Bruklin, New York