Promised day

Sitting in the bus
Gazing lazily out
At the fleeting scenes
Passing by my side
The bus stopped at signal.

My eyes drifted to pavement
Another family living
Under a plastic sheet
Too feeble to save them
From the wrath of nature.

A tiny toddler playing
On the dirty pavement
A beautiful flower blooming
Half withered in concrete
No one even bothering.

When will I see the last of it?
So many times I wonder!
When will the promised day come?
With shelter, food and books
For each and every children?

Song of unemployment

Give me bread
Honest bread
With little something
For me and my family
I promise I won’t steal.

Give me my dues
Let my sweat, brain speak
No other language
I should need to use
I won’t go astray.

When I starve
With my family
When my toil is stolen
Just because you sleep
Instead of guarding us.

That’s when I go blind
Do things I should nor
To stop me
Wake up
Do your duties.

Sharmishtha basu
1.08.10

Aqua Marina

Aqua Marina

Aqua marina smiles
blue Petals glow
droplets of waves
sparkling crystals
decorating velvet green.

Under the azurine sky
Snowy peaks
touching clouds
Pieces of ocean
Stitched in earth’s gown.


Sharmishtha basu
1.09.10


======================================================

Blue poppies

A piece of heaven
A piece of sapphire
With a body and life
I never thought
Something so beautiful
Existed in earth.
They spread across
The valleys and mountains
Hundreds and hundreds
Beautiful dream.


Sharmishtha basu
29.08.10

Swinging to the clouds

Dark clouds have gathered
A peacock dances
Spreading its rainbow plumes
As the white lightning flashes
Against the ebony clouds
Birds have huddled in their nests,
Thunder roars
Pitter patter starts
Waiting to turn into
Silver torrent pouring down.

under the flimsy veil of mango leaves
the little girl swings
her swing trying to kiss the branches
her hair wet and face glistening
her eyes are lost in the clouds
she wants to fly out to them
so she keeps swinging
ignoring the sliver cascade
ignoring her mother’s shout
“come home right now!”

Sharmishtha basu
29.08.10

----------------------------------------------------------
She swings

Her rope is tied
To the ebony clouds
She swings
The wind sings
A soft song
Rain drops
Call out her name
In soft symphony
Softly they kiss
Her glowing cheeks
Her flowing tresses
Her swaying dress
Trees stretch
Their green branches
Birds fly by
As she reaches
Higher and higher
To touch the clouds

Sharmishtha basu
1.09.10

Raise the curtain

Don’t be shy
Don’t be scared
Reach out
Pull the curtain
Open the window wide.

Let the air gush in
Let the sunshine stream
Don’t worry about some flies
Or some splash of rain
That will follow the freedom.

Look out- greet the real world
With its beauty and sadness
With its riches and poverty
Face the truth
Don’t hide behind a curtain.

Don’t let ignorance blind you
Wrap you under its cloak
Face the world just the way it is
There is so much to love
There is so much to change, if we care.

Sharmishtha basu
16.08.10

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Twenty five thousand lives
Perished without a trace
Left behind a procession
Of twisted bodies and limbs.

People in power
Busy playing blame game
Busy saving their skin
Everywhere is silence of death.

People with dead soul
People with dead conscience
Just watch the scene
Don’t utter a word.

When a mother cradles her baby
Deformed and twisted
Who does she curse?
God or human greed?

This is just a message
From one common woman
To the common people who suffered
We mourn with you.

Those who caused this
Those who helped them hide their sin
Both sleep in peace and bliss
But our hearts burn with you.

Any one who wants to know about it can check in Google or Wikipedia.

Its really shameful that almost nothing has been done for these people after absolutely destroying their lives, and the lives of their coming generations.

Reality and dreams

Two sides of a coin
so very different
in every little thing
yet both are needed
to complete a coin,
are useless without
the other, yet can
never face the other..

such are the world of pure dream
and the world of harsh reality
they both form the human world
one wont exist without the other
but they don’t have anything similar
and they will never face eath other.

written on: 11.05.09

reality

Why do people get scared of reality
when they see it face to face?
looking back coldly at those eyes
full of curiosity and innocence?

These naïve souls who try to play
with fire, thinking that it’s the small
earthen lamp burning, lighting up home,
get frightened when they see its power.

They think that life is evenly distributed
with the same harmony and rhyme
they try to tally their life with all live
when they are proved wrong they detest.

Reality is just like fire, some places it burns
Low, lights up, warms up and glows
In some places it burns out of bound and
Scorches every soul which comes around.

Parents

A little girl pretty as flower
grew up with neglect and scorn
never saw love in her parent’s eyes
nor did she won love from others.

She was the fourth girl child born
after three brothers, three sisters,
abuse, scorn, neglect was her share
in that overcrowded home of nine members.

One day her parents fixed her suitor
everyone was surprised as she was
the youngest of them all and all her
sisters were to be married yet.

She was wedded off to a distant land
which she discoveree was a pit of hell
her parents have bargained with her soul
to save them and remaining of their own.

Everytime she heard some one calling
a parent something similar to God
she used to stare vacantly at them
and hide her eyes to hide her tears.