Category: new poetry

The country club was depeopled
For it rained hard with the breeze
He, the poet, somehow got into it…
And sat by the window sealed…

The time was evening though
And the poet’s beer mug had all the glow
Of the setting sun in the west,
Just then arrived in cow-boy dress
The woman of the wild with holstered waist!

He looked at her drenched shirt
And the water dripping from her hat
She came banging the door smart!
And ordered a pitcher before she sat…

She took off her hat and placed
It on the wood brown
Then she untied her hair from the lace
And let it flow her shoulder down…

He looked at her side profile
A woman who had crossed all gale
She smelt of strong gunpowder
Was she a rodeo…or a wrangler?

He thought all these
As the strong wind crossed the knot-speed
She looked at the shaking hut
And looked towards the window shut
And invariably to the poet,
with a beer mug, half emptied…

‘How de?’
She asked in a voice gruff
He just nodded in reluctance
Not meeting her eyes tough…

‘Got fag?’
She asked him,
Flashing a smile benign
For the first time showing her charms feminine…

She came and drooped down
To light the fag from his hand…
Her wet hair touched his head
And he noticed on her cleavage…
The sprinkle of tiny grains of golden sand…

She must have been to men and places
For right that moment her eyes his met
And she realised at once his gaze so misplaced…

But she had more to show
For she loosened the first button on the row
And took a long puff from the fag
And pulled him from the table with a simple drag
And placed her pistol on his head…
And with sufficient menace said,
‘Wanna get my boobs, poet?’
He just fumbled and wanted air
For his voice was choked sure…
And she, the cowgirl felt that fair
For she laughed heartily
And dropped him down on his knee…

Then she went back gulping beer
And the poet got up to pen down something there
And just when he finished the scribble somehow
She came to him again and down bowed-
To see his shaking hand
How wrote on a paper…
A kind of eulogy on her-
Mixed with golden grains of sand-
A few drops of evening beer!

She took the slip of paper at once
And gave it a careless glance
And read haltingly what was on it…
Written in shaking hand by a poet…

Then she broke out in laughs wild
As if she found something silly…
She tapped the poet, mild
And without any dilly-dally
Planted a kiss on his lips…

But the kiss was so momentary-
For there dashed into the bar
Two horsemen with guns in a hurry,
And they together saw the woman
With a man feeble thus taken…
‘Hey you bitch!’
One of them cried
And the poet trembling got shied
Behind the woman mighty…

The cowgirl stood straight
From her holster out parried
The pistol so shiny, bright;
Then followed an ugly skirmish
As pistols fired from both sides…
The poet was losing senses
Though behind the woman he, the coward, did hide;

Bang! bang! deafening sounds
Went over the sound of breeze
The poet clutched the woman’s sleeve
And almost stood there… freeze…

After few minutes later
The fires died sudden
And the poet saw
The cowgirl how blood-laden
Fallen on the floor
And the two horsemen fleeing through the door…

He, the poet, the pistol from the cowgirl took
Though his hands terribly shook
And with full force pressed the trigger
That sent a bullet into the shadowy figure
Of one of the horsemen, who fell at once…
And buoyed by the chance
The poet pressed the trigger again
This time the fire was in vain…
But the poet was so enraged
That he was about to follow the other in haste

But then he heard a voice faint
That put him all restrained;

He turned back to watch the woman
Breathing still and with a face so pained
Waving the poem in her hand…
Asking him for a hand to her lend;

He the poet hurried to her
Took in his arms her head
And asked her loud and clear
‘What do you want my maid?’

The woman said nothing but smiled
As if she had seen her love
As if she could die now in peace
Only at the end of such a sweet skirmish!

Then she collapsed on his hands
With her grip loosening…
The poem fell on the floor, o dear!
So much blood …with sand mixed.

(Copyright : Moinak Dutta)