Refugee Blues

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

--- W H Auden

जो अपराधी नहीं होंगे, मारे जाएंगे...

जो इस पागलपन में शामिल नहीं होंगे, मारे जाएंगे

कठघरे में खड़े कर दिये जाएंगे, जो विरोध में बोलेंगे
जो सच-सच बोलेंगे, मारे जाएंगे

बर्दाश्‍त नहीं किया जाएगा कि किसी की कमीज हो
उनकी कमीज से ज्‍यादा सफेद
कमीज पर जिनके दाग नहीं होंगे, मारे जाएंगे

धकेल दिये जाएंगे कला की दुनिया से बाहर, जो चारण नहीं होंगे
जो गुण नहीं गाएंगे, मारे जाएंगे

धर्म की ध्‍वजा उठाने जो नहीं जाएंगे जुलूस में
गोलियां भून डालेंगी उन्हें, काफिर करार दिये जाएंगे

सबसे बड़ा अपराध है इस समय निहत्‍्थे और निरपराधी होना
जो अपराधी नहीं होंगे, मारे जाएंगे !

--- राजेश जोशी

Love

Love

That’s it:
The cashless commerce.
The blanket always too short.
The loose connexion.

To search behind the horizon.
To brush fallen leaves with four shoes
and in one’s mind to rub bare feet.
To let and rent hearts;
or in a room with shower and mirror,
in a hired car, bonnet facing the moon,
wherever innocence stops
and burns its programme,
the word in falsetto sounds
different and new each time.

Today, in front of a box office not yet open,
hand in hand crackled
the hangdog old man and the dainty old woman.
The film promised love.”

―-- Günter Grass

वंदन कर भारत माता का, गणतंत्र राज्य की बोलो जय।

वंदन कर भारत माता का, गणतंत्र राज्य की बोलो जय।
काका का दर्शन प्राप्त करो, सब पाप-ताप हो जाए क्षय॥

मैं अपनी त्याग-तपस्या से जनगण को मार्ग दिखाता हूँ।
है कमी अन्न की इसीलिए चमचम-रसगुल्ले खाता हूँ॥

गीता से ज्ञान मिला मुझको, मँज गया आत्मा का दर्पण।
निर्लिप्त और निष्कामी हूँ, सब कर्म किए प्रभु के अर्पण॥

आत्मोन्नति के अनुभूत योग, कुछ तुमको आज बतऊँगा।
हूँ सत्य-अहिंसा का स्वरूप, जग में प्रकाश फैलाऊँगा॥

आई स्वराज की बेला तब, 'सेवा-व्रत' हमने धार लिया।
दुश्मन भी कहने लगे दोस्त! मैदान आपने मार लिया॥

जब अंतःकरण हुआ जाग्रत, उसने हमको यों समझाया।
आँधी के आम झाड़ मूरख क्षणभंगुर है नश्वर काया॥

गृहणी ने भृकुटी तान कहा-कुछ अपना भी उद्धार करो।
है सदाचार क अर्थ यही तुम सदा एक के चार करो॥

गुरु भ्रष्टदेव ने सदाचार का गूढ़ भेद यह बतलाया।
जो मूल शब्द था सदाचोर, वह सदाचार अब कहलाया॥

गुरुमंत्र मिला आई अक्कल उपदेश देश को देता मैं।
है सारी जनता थर्ड क्लास, एअरकंडीशन नेता मैं॥

जनता के संकट दूर करूँ, इच्छा होती, मन भी चलता।
पर भ्रमण और उद्घाटन-भाषण से अवकाश नहीं मिलता॥

आटा महँगा, भाटे महँगे, महँगाई से मत घबराओ।
राशन से पेट न भर पाओ, तो गाजर शकरकन्द खाओ॥

ऋषियों की वाणी याद करो, उन तथ्यों पर विश्वास करो।
यदि आत्मशुद्धि करना चाहो, उपवास करो, उपवास करो॥

दर्शन-वेदांत बताते हैं, यह जीवन-जगत अनित्या है।
इसलिए दूध, घी, तेल, चून, चीनी, चावल, सब मिथ्या है॥

रिश्वत अथवा उपहार-भेंट मैं नहीं किसी से लेता हूँ।
यदि भूले भटके ले भी लूँ तो कृष्णार्पण कर देता हूँ॥

ले भाँति-भाँति की औषधियाँ, शासक-नेता आगे आए।
भारत से भ्रष्टाचार अभी तक दूर नहीं वे कर पाए॥

अब केवल एक इलाज शेष, मेरा यह नुस्खा नोट करो।
जब खोट करो, मत ओट करो, सब कुछ डंके की चोट करो॥

--रचनाकार: काका हाथरसी

फिर सफ़ेद-पोश उठे, काएँ - काएँ करने लगे|

अँधेरे चारों तरफ़ सायं-सायं करने लगे
चिराग़ हाथ उठाकर दुआएँ करने लगे |

तरक़्क़ी कर गए बीमारियों के सौदागर ,
ये सब मरीज़ हैं जो अब दवाएँ करने लगे|

लहू - लोहान पड़ा था ज़मीं पे इक सूरज ,
परिन्दे अपने परों से हवाएँ करने लगे |

ज़मीं पे आ गए आँखों से टूट कर आँसू,
बुरी ख़बर है फ़रिश्ते ख़ताएँ करने लगे |

अजीब रंग था मजलिस का, ख़ूब महफ़िल थी.
फिर सफ़ेद-पोश उठे, काएँ - काएँ करने लगे|

---राहत इन्दौरी

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

--- W. H. Auden

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

---: W.B. Yeats