Long Calcutta Poems

Sharing my translation of a famous poem (Sadharan Meye) written by Rabindranath Tagore, who won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. It's one of his story-like poems, written in Bengali, which is one of the...

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Translation of Mahakavi Bharathiyar’s poem: “Asai Mugam” or “Beloved Face”
                         ...

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A Brief For The Defense 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies 
are not starving someplace, they are starving 
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. 
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants....

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A rising sun burns like a solar flare
  from St....

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Kelly Ghosts!
         Dan Kelly lived and Steve Hart too,
          though the police thought they had fried.
  ...

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those powerful hands, embodying strength, offering a refuge, 
          the determined voice which carried assurance to fearful souls....
    a banyan tree stretching its...

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Far from the madding crowd
I treasure the myths you gone through
Once I walk down the streets of legends
Even the weeping dusts reminds me of 
Bloods, who immolated their lives to you.
 
Oh Calcutta! You live...

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From The Heart To The Cross

The burden to carry on a journey slated,
Weighs heavily on an outcome known fated.
When faith is the belief in hope for deliverance
Where humanity’s destiny hangs in the balance.
In mirrors dwell...

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Women all around the world
a tribute to you twirling
everyday work and struggles
A woman, wife, mother, chauffeur,
nurse, doctors, lawyers, engineer,
short order cook, baker, teacher,
poet, artist, librarian, soldier,
sister, mother in-law, grandmother,
great-grandmother, daughter,
friend, peacemaker, dancer,
dog-walker, ... and a...

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Dropped anchor off the Fever Coast 
‘board a rake-masted schooner
Spooked by Ahab’s ghost. 
Lamps glowered through the yawning blanks
Casting bone-twisted shadows 
Over teakwood planks.
Salt biscuits and Jamaican rum; 
Heard the deep-throated rattle
Of the talking drum.

Count...

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I am a drunken pen, or at least thats what they call me in the betting shop at 4.55pm on a Saturday afternoon. Kept deep inside the cavity of a old polyester jacket to converse...

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Lovingly, Apu

Prithwiraj Chowdhury

Pulu, how are you? Are you all well, these days?
This pen is down on spark, too soon, quite a dismay!
These letters are tracing more and more blurry , even more than a foggy...

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Dying starving kids in the streets of Calcutta. 
Lepers, faceless and worthless pieces of flesh, 
kicked and tossed in the nearest cesspool. 
Low caste Hindus hated and harried from the Ganges. 

Women raped in the...

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River Findings

The Ohio winds around hills
and streams down the hollows
passes steel mills, brick yards and scrap yards.
It carries tug boats, pushes barges, and hauls
black coal stripped from the mountainsides. 

The Ohio’s littered banks 
are home...

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Mother Teresa
She is the mother of every poor people, injured people, ordinary people...

Always we remember the great news
'Mother Teresa will get the Nobel Peace Prize.'
It was one of the best moment in our life...

She lived...

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Calcutta. 

Hot and unberable in the searing summer heat 
and unberarable for more reasons than the heat. 
In a popular tourist cafe an American widow 
obsesses on her dead husband: she has a bundle 
of...

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A Woman's Self-Worth, is highest among all, for it was a woman, God created, in thy divine holy image.  Friendships, relationships, and holy matrimony, was God's blueprint, for all women.

Eve, the first wife and...

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DARK CLOUDS HAD GATHERED

by Madhuri Rebecca Hembrom
Penned down on Jan. 15, 2015 @ Calcutta, Bishops College, 2 pm

 
Dark clouds had gathered
So black and dark 
That, i almost lost hope;
Hope to see the stars above,
To...

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On Dinner and hearing the news
Your soft touch, elbow to elbow, not withdrawn, steady;
An unnecessary head on shoulder in lament.
Casual glances, a quiet acceptance of the gift of food
The next night.

The inner tremor of excitement,...

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IF ever I had a country : LIV - LV

			LIV

IF ever I had even at an Event Horizon a country
And if ever I were by self-arrogated Divine Right His or Her Imperial Majesty
I'd clamp in...

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Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu had a surreal journey through life,
inspired by a vision
she left her home in the rural countryside
of Albania and went to Calcutta India
a place lost to time.
The established traditions of the people
included ones...

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Young, gentle and in bondage
This innocent bird flew towards the promised land
Her frame petite yet powerful
Her eggs beautifully nested when transported from Calcutta

The sight of the new turf welcoming
A dream of hope and fair go...

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Thoughts flapping around like untied shoelaces. Breaking my stride and slowing me down. A fleeting smile crosses my lips as I think about what someone once told me. “ Don't think too much”, “ Don't...

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A Call to a Religious Life
      By Lillian J. Jeffery


Family pray together,
share their table with the poor,
young Agnes goes on outings,
outings with the local church, 
sings in the choir
Her chosen...

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The girl is an ultra-modern scholar, 
Belongs with an upper-middle class family. 
Looking very nice, smart, gets angry suddenly. 
She reads M.A in English at Presidency University. 
She is assimilating to the ideas of Shakespeare,...

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