The Cursed Land

a poem by Debjit Chatterjee

The clock ticks once more;
a dead poet’s frozen words,
those pages smite the spiteful heap
but rests a while to cry and weep.

It’s a long walk;
once there was a snowy hill,
an old hag treads on deaf and blind,
sans the world she knew behind.

Oh: what a waste;
the miffed earth awaits the soggy breeze,
a stifled neck still, in a hanging noose,
his plough is dug beneath his shoes.

It’s just as bad;
he was an urchin sans a care,
lived on the streets,ate with the dogs,
they stoned him down, he stole their pots.

But that was yesterday;
the tracks his home, a pedlar old,
his wife left early, his sons were bored,
a station, his limericks, and him no more.

Yeah: is it really true;
those lovely stained glasses, and a voice much hoarse
the kids he taught, loved and caned,
missed a stair, his eyes slowly waned.

What can be done;
he dragged his carts, he laid those bricks,
his wife, his kids, some food to eat,
a roof that crashed, quite hard to beat.

Its best left unsaid;
there was once a little girl,
pigtails, satchel and a mind to learn,
a school, a hell and left to burn.