Editor’s Note: When I first read Suman Chatterjee’s poetry, I felt swept up in the scents and sensuous evocations of Omar Khayyám, even to the similarities in the ruba’i stanzas. These are short poems, sometimes romantic, often charming, ever flowing from a kind heart and a fleeting thought which the poet took the time to remember and craft in verse. Take a few moments to savor each of them.
* * *
A Beautiful Mind
A thousand oceans and seven seas,
Among blue, green and red,
Species known, Unknown
traversed I, in depths unseen,
Free-floating in an infinity,
With stars that bear in time,
Back and forth, and back,
Of life, light and wisdom:
The colorful canvass of Gold,
The scribbles of Old,
The secret they hold, leading,
The way towards freedom and glory
Of Mankind, to find and shine,
For the Ultimate One to be,
To feel, to learn, to see –
The beautiful world,
That was, that is, that is to be,
Through my beautiful mind.
* * *
Mudded, Sodded, Plodded
Down rolled tears his rosy cheeks,
He, mudded, sodded and plodded:
Little hands, hardy as a warrior’s shield,
In the empty, gray field
Yonder, where his brother o’ seven
The last time he laid, his bloody head,
His tired eyes, with a sinless smile.
And still he, mudded, sodded and plodded:
His little warrior’s hands,
On they searched for a piece o’ bread,
The shiny metal in the other,
As his wise brother, one day, said:
“We’ll win, Jacob, we’ll win.”
Our freedom, his freedom forever.
* * *
Like a Gardenia of East
Like a Gardenia of East,
Around lingers your smell divine –
In my veins, the red Lucifer flames,
Blooms the tree of guilty fire;
When your dark eyes speak not,
But hide in your cascading tress brown,
Your rosy cheeks that glow,
Oh! Your soft round bosom so fair,
All bare, as I burn
And burn, and burn
With love, and hate,
Sometimes of Ivy, poisoned green,
Sometimes of Hyacinth, soft and serene:
Uncertain like unknown,
My innocent soul of love and blind,
Free of conscience of all,
That wants to caress you,
That wants to carol you,
To care ‘bout you –
In this life, and the life after.
* * *
Suman “Ron” Chatterjee is a professional copywriter by day and passionate fiction writer by night. He has been published in AllPoetry, the Baby Shoes anthology, and a couple of other magazines. He stays in India and scribbles his musings in his personal blog here.
