Isn't It Strange?

 Isn't it strange 

That people of all nations

Spread all over the world 

Lose themselves in celebrations 

For the birth 

Of a child in a remote

Corner of the earth!

For the birth of a child 

Homeless, humble and unknown 

Born in a stable, among animals mild

Royal lined yet poor wearing no crown 

Isn't it strange  joy 

For an infant so insignificant 

And all the songs they employ !

Strange how the news spread

On earth far and wide

This side of the ocean

And that wild foreign side

The chid never walked  across 

The boundaries of his little country 

And died on an infamous cross!

Isn't it strange?

Xavier Bage

Friday, December 30, 2022

The First Day of January

 As the first day of January draws near,

 My heart beats with cheer and pain 

for that is the day you held me Closest to your bosom and fastened me with invisible love chain!

Oh my dearest 🌹 rose, who is so far from my longing sight

Memories of your caressing smiles and beaconing light

Draw so near to my being, body and soul

But I can't hold you to my heart, oh lost love!

For an unfathomable chasm   yawns between  and above 

Now , whenever the first day of January arrives

An unspoken pain wells in me and thrives

Only this excruciating pain  embraces me

 Drowning me into the burning hot depth of sea!

 

Forgive My Rudeness

 I have forgotten to thank you

So many times

For so many gifts of love

Forgive. my rudeness, Lord

I have been insensitive

Careless and callous

While using them

Give me the grace to be

More thankful

More appreciative.

Xavier Bage

11/10/2021

The Suffering Streams

Pain of the blue mountains

Flows day and night 

In the rushing waters of the Dooars rivers!

How they deceive the eyes

The evergreen tea estates

Under these lively skies

The degradation of humanity 

Freely continues!

The maiden is raped without

Any qualms of conscience

On the tables of the estate office 

They play ping-pong with illiterate workers!

Those girls sitting beside roads

To sell rice beer (handia)

Eventually lose their dignity

The land sheds silent tears on unfortunate virginity!

At home her father is coughing

Spitting bloody sputum

Who must decide to keep

remedies in the hospital

 that heal?

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, 24/08/1993

• 9:30 A.M.

I am Teaching My Children a Song of Revolution

 

These poems were written in the years 1993 -1994 in Hindi. I am translating them into English for readers worldwide.

 

 

 

I am teaching my children

A song of magical modulation

Which will intensify with each passing day

Into a raging fire of revolution!

 

Those grass sticks on the riverside sand

Waver right and left, north and south

Crows on the blooming Maria* trees

Caw endlessly, ooze saliva on mouth!

 

If you can declare a dog lunatic

You can kill it without guilt

But who on earth is pure and sinless?

Every man is of flesh and bone built!

 

I’m filling a spark in every word

Even if I die before I am young

The song must remain alive

I have given my poetry a tongue!

 

I am transfusing in it the life of my blood

I am filling it with violent vibration

Though they were born serene and tender

I am teaching my children a song of revolution!

 

Maria flowers bloom in May. In local dialect they are called “bandarlauri”(monkey stick, because of their sticklike seed pods). I have christened them Maria flowers because they bloom in May, the month dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus.

 

Xavier Bage

Mon, 23 August 1993, 9:30 PM

The Prophet's Poems

In an imperishable almirah

Keep these rejected songs safely, you must

Who knows one day they may come out to lift up

 An oppressed man bloodied on the road

A fallen soul from the dust!

 

Be not dejected if no one was able to

sing them in the tune you composed

Be not depressed that so called wise men

Interpreted the words wrongly,

With undesired meanings imposed!

 

A poem sometimes is like the color of mehndi

It takes time to show color stark

O poet, Keep up creating selflessly

It may be a burning light to a traveler

Who needed ray of hope, a spark!

 

Those who like the hungry flies

Are sitting on the account book of sale

Cannot appreciate the colors of the butterflies

 The magical scent of the flowers , songs of the birds

For them there is just one color, pale!

 

Spoiled children on high chairs

Are laughing in derision

On prophets and poets

A generation will rise in future which

will bow to your prophetic creation!

 

Xavier Bage

17/08/1993

 

The Blue Hills Don't Utter a Word

Sucked dry by scary scarcity

Beaten hard by heartless hunger

Emaciated human bodies aboard

Among the tea bushes green

Busied themselves thin and lean

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Her lungs infested with tubercle germs

Balamdina comes to the tea garden

She nourishes the plants with her blood

The ill equipped hospital in the estate

Failed to give her a healthier state

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Among the machines of the factory

The Adivasi worker boy called Zenga

Lay bloodied, motionless, floored

Worked silently among the machines roaring

One machine played a cruel joke boring

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

His rights were snatched by the greedy

Though flags of various colors flutter

Near the factory iron - doored

Raising rainbow slogans in the air

Socialism, justice, rights, wages fair,

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Tightly the mire holds all to their neck

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Xavier Bage

Thursday,  19/8/1993

Masks

Masks, how they tell us lies

How they grandly posture!

Seen them hovering as flies

Over rotting ideas and gesture!

 

As veils they are aptly spread

Over selfish motive and aim

Those lofty sounding words said

How unjust powers they claim!

 

I don’t want to declare him prince

As he is my favorite begotten-in–law

But I will go all the way since

Want dollars and Euros to me flow!

 

Masks have been used to hide guilt

The truth and all the nasty rot

Where will it lead all that you built -

When you lie on your last cot?

 

Repent you cannot, for time is passed

Reform you cannot for it was a scheme

Be ready to see what you’ve amassed

In ruins your dishonesty will gleam!

 

Xavier Bage

6/26/2020 9.33 AM

 

Minds Made of Clay

Is it my age

That is making my eyes see things?

Is it my advancing years

 that is making my ears hear uncommon things?

Long ago I was told by the grand old man

in subtle words of scheming  manipulations

that he is no better

than the lowest filth

in the  strata !

But I didn’t believe it

I was a believer in the sureness of the minds

Having lofty aims of uplifting men!

No, now I realize

We are all petty creatures made from clay

Painted over to look exotic and fashionable

 Harboring earthly desires,

crawling in the gutter of our sinfulness!

Don’t be disappointed for this holy place

This place of pilgrimage

This too was made by human hands

Of many  frailties!

Xavier Bage

6/27/2020

Composed: Oct 2019

To Cruel Corona Let's Sing a Song

To cruel Corona let’s sing a song       

Think not dear if it is right or wrong                                                               

Who knows not it is the ruling crown

All earth is quivering under its frown

Tiny it is but who can measure its might?

Who in foolishness dare it to fight?

In millions it has claimed human lives

Far and wide it thunders and thrives

Wise men everywhere their heads scratch

What weapon be potent enough to match?    

No medicines have appeared in half a year!

Is it in the fate of man to tremble in fear?

Xavier Bage

6/23/20 20

10:13 PM

She Doesn't Live Here Anymore

The woman is fooled again and again

She is poor and hungry

Her jobless sons are roaming

The streets where hoodlums rule

Getting shoved and kicked

Yet, she trusts them to help her!

The braggart up there had promised her

Money, a lot of money

Promised jobs to her sons

She hoped her lot would improve

In her simplicity she had voted for those hoodlums

But look what they have done!

Her daughter is sobbing in the dark room

She is beyond consolation

While she was coming back from school

They carried her to one of those houses

With farms and garden and iron gates

They bloodied her and abandoned her!

They told her to keep quiet

Otherwise they would finish

Her mother and brothers.

Those men that sit outside the political club

beside the road with arrogant flag flying

that knows only one way, its own!

Don’t look for the mother here

She has left this street six years ago

After mobocracy made a house on this street

And majoritarianism  became the new law here

And now ,  small voices are contemptuously  ignored

And stamped out if they become too irritating!

Indiana doesn’t live here any more

After her enemies abused her day and night

Hurled stones at her and at her house!

Can a person worth his or her name

Tolerate insults and violence endlessly?  She couldn’t!

She left ; she doesn’t live in the town anymore!

Xavier Bage

Tues, Oct 27, 2019

Don't Write Any Letter to Me

Don't write any letter to me

Don't point at my loud mouth lies

Don't publish my festering faults

Though on me hover countless flies

Don't rake my sins in the market

I don't like those who do me this harm

I abhor them to the extreme, you bet.

With FIRs I threaten them

With court cases them I hound

From their jobs I drive them out

From their homes up I round

After them my Gestapo I send

I drag them to the concentrations!

Until their knees and minds they don’t bend!

I warn you again,

Do you want to end up in dungeon?

Don’t you know?

The voices I hate strangle I can!

Aren’t you aware how those names,

Have been eliminated?

Gauri, Kulbargi and Pansare of whatever fame!

Writer, poets, thinkers, artists, teachers,

Be afraid, O you so called intellectuals

Crawl before me if you wish to breathe

Sing my praises and be rewarded, do me rituals 

But, if you continue your irritating noise

I warn you of the damned consequences

When I’ll lose my camouflaged poise!

Xavier Bage

09 October 2019

Isn't All Well in This Land?

Isn’t all well in our land?

It has been declared

from the highest pulpit.

All is well with the people

They live happy and contented life

Why don’t you believe?

So many others believe it,

You too must believe it!

These my faithful are so patriotic

They are clapping at my surgical strikes

They are thrilled, I’ve given them Balakot

They are exhilarated

I have landed a good slap at the neighbor’s cheek

These patriots love it

Why don’t you yell all is well?

Are you not a patriot?

The patriots don’t need jobs

I have given them the job of singing

Praises to me and maligning my opponent

Day in day out with all their energy

They sing hymns to me and genuflect

They are not hungry for food

I have fed them with something much better

A plate of food cooked in our kitchen

A pseudo religious dish, they love to lap !

Farmers ? Why speak of them?

I’ve given them schemes galore!

So numerous I can’t even keep track of all

My enemies ask ---

Why are so many of them committing suicide?

Surely not my fault!

How dare you lay the blame at my door?

You are tarnishing the image of the country?

And spoiling my name.

You are an "Urban Naxal" or what?!

Why this hue and cry about Kashmir?

Why shout when I arrest

those trouble making politicians?

Why should they be allowed to have their own flag?

Their own prime minister?

Never! One nation, one flag!

I am the only prime minister!

I want to embrace them

370 keeps them far from me

Now, the heaven is ours with its fairies!

And my devotees can have them!

Isn’t all well in our beloved motherland?

Xavier Bage

Sat, Sept 28, 2019

The Silent Lifeless Body of the Man

The silent lifeless body of the man

Smeared with dust on the road

His shirt and pant tattered and

Stained with his blood still oozing

Cries aloud to heaven and the people

The silent lifeless body of the man!

He was a man alive and working

Just half an hour ago, passing by

In his little van carrying an animal

A group of men with saffron scarves

Accosted the van pulled the man out

He was a man alive and working!

 Those fired with foul fanatic zeal

Threw the hapless man on the road

Battered him with fists, kicks, rods

The lone man pleaded for his life

Their ears and hearts were stony

Those fired with foul fanatic zeal!

The man’s pleading fell on deaf ears

The cruel men carried on their crime

Their mouths yelled Jai to a holy name

The name of the demon slaying god

Here they slew a man like themselves

The man’s pleading fell on deaf ears!

On the dust lifeless robbed of dignity

Since then the victim has been lying

His tormentors have now dispersed

The passersby with dead humanity

Stand afar a while to stare at the fallen

On the dust lifeless robbed of dignity!

This New India is led by blind bigotry

Who will save this land of rainbow?

Of many colors, cultures and creeds

For their political greed for power

Diabolical intents have poisoned the air

This New India is led by blind bigotry!

Xavier Bage

Friday, Oct 4, 2019

Never Will I Touch the Vine, O Valentine

O dear Clementine,

I know in my soul

You can’t be my valentine

If you wish or even if you don’t wish

Let your name be the moon

On my silhouetted skyline!

Your ears are deaf to my voice

Your eyes are blind to my words

The realization in my mind is total

I am blocked off your media

There isn’t any space in your circle,

I can rightly feel mine!

I walk the dark paths alone

Under the tall ghostlike trees

The night bushes with eyes

Staring at me, following me

You don’t hold any lamp for me

Why in my heart should I pine?

You’ll walk with that someone else

Who possesses all your profile;

You’ll embrace and kiss him

And offer him in worship your thoughts

 Your love grape will be an oblation for him

Never will I touch the vine!

Xavier Bage

Tues, Feb 19, 2019

The Silence of Death

There is silence all around

Only silence

Nothing but silence!

The door of the  love hut is shut

And the front yard ---

doesn’t open its arms to me

The rose at the side ---

doesn’t smile to me anymore

The message board looks to me blankly

My deepest heart asks,

Why is this torturous quiet?

Why is this deafening silence?

Is it death? Is it death?

The silence replies, ‘Yes, it is!’

The door says rudely,

“Don’t come here any more --

seeking life!”

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Wish I had That Chest

Wish I had that chest
Measuring 56inches
Wish I had that tongue
That all duel clinches!

Wish I had that skill
That twists the words
Wish I had that stone
To kill two flying birds!

Wish I had the hordes
To raise me overhead
I'd be the high heaven
To eat of god's bread!

Devotees to shout my name
On the roads and media
I know they'll all vanish
But I 'll be in encyclopaedia!

A man of clay I'm here
A bag of flesh and bone
Today I move on the earth
Tomorrow I will be gone!

Xavier Bage
Tuesday, December 18, 2018

This Foul Poisoned Air

Lies and twists truths he

Over the speakers loud,

His sins he so cleverly

Hides under a holy shroud!

Misleading the simple folk

To dark forests of doom,

Where they find him a deliverer

 to bring greater gloom!

One lifted over the heads

Above the gullible minds

Has torn the soul of the soil

Thrown the pieces to winds!

How many will be victims

Of this foul poisoned air!

How many years will pass

For our thoughts to be fair!

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, Dec 04, 2018

Enemies Let's Remain

Enemies let’s remain

For it suits us best

That we don’t rest

Our weapons of pain!

If we stop to injure

what will set rage on fire

Our minds in hate inspire

Let not kindness lure!

In wounds let bodies bleed

Let more be surgery strikes

Contempt our fiery heart likes

Bullets and bombs we need!

Doves of peace in death fall

Entangled on border  wire

Let violent words transpire

Our devotees to enthrall!

Xavier Bage

Sat, Nov 24, 2018

Night is Never Silent

An airplane flies in the near sky

Trucks on the road rumble by

A distant train whistles, donno why

Night is never silent , it speaks.

The factories may be asleep

Markets may be dreaming deep

Their noises in busy minds leap

Today and tomorrow within wreaks .

A lonely bird on a tree cries

As the only branch it nests dies

Has seen truth of life and lies

Yet, the  Bethlehem star it seeks!

Xavier Bage

Friday, Nov 16, 2018