In The Rain 

Sadia Arman* for Alochonaa

It is raining sweetly

The world outside my sickroom window

Is dreamy under the drowsy curtains.

I am not thinking of you

I am thinking of the neighbourly doyel

Who announced the rainfall

Two minutes before

From the nest window-sill

It is raining and the tired air in my lungs

Is replaced

With the life-giver’s breath.

I am not thinking of you

The thunderbolts of your attentions

Are intense and momentary

I become dense and apathetic

Remembering you in a helpless wait.

I am thinking of the fine hair

Of the magical rain bird,

That is flying through the air to touch me

Through my window,

As if Andersen’s little mermaid

Has revived to finish

Her song of longing and love.

I am not thinking of you

In the rain.

* Sadia Arman was born a poet, and currently practices the law in Bangladesh. She combines her work with activism for civil and political rights and writing. 

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Modernity 

Suruchi Bakshi* for Alochonaa

Fragrant fumes, inhaled.

Gives no life, but death.

Progeny respires, in the new world.

Dark souls, aspire for peace.

Feeling, nepotism and crookedness.

Extinct values, desire revolution.

Playing with the past, falsifying the present.

Wrapping the future, in a new attire.

Robbed ideals and rotten wisdom,

Promise to trust and stand by,

To get ruined and decayed.

Groomed stylish, the age modish,

Gambol with atoms, clueless,

Oblivious of The End.

 * Suruchi works as an english teacher. She loves to write poems and would to learn and explore more of the same. 

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Prostitute 

Siobal Dasgupta* for Alochonaa

They call you a prostitute,
I call you a temple,
they see you as an object,
I see you as a human,
you die every moment,
for their never lasting lust,
then you die again,
every moment, every time,
not by their curses,
but by your regrets.

They call you a prostitute,
I call you a temple,
they admire you,
as a goddess of beauty,
I admire you,
as a goddess of pain,
you are immortal,
you defeat the death every night,
and come back to life,
with the new dawn.

They call you a prostitute,
I call you a temple,
they call you unchaste,
but who goes to whom?
You never go to them,
but they come to you,
they call your son, illegitimate,
so is an unchaste man’s son,
you live with your pain,
but never let your eyes rain.

They call you a prostitute,
I call you a temple,
your unchaste body is the sacred temple,
where the goddess lives,
the idol of Durga is incomplete,
without the dust of your feet,
yet you are called unchaste,
the soul in your body,
cannot be a human’s soul,
that’s why they never see you,
as a human….

* Soibal Dasgupta writes from India. In his own words; “I am Soibal Dasgupta, one among the 1,220,800,358 people living in India. This is my identity to the whole world”