Author Information
Beggar
Folder:
bishupoetry 
Beggar
181818
Beggar on the dusty pavement
Dented aluminium bowl in hand
Slender fingers rattles the coins
Faded patched saree once bright
As the scarlet-orange rising sun
Now the colour of faded twilight
Long hair matted with sorrow
Mimicking hues of a house-rat
Bare corned feet overgrown nails
Stomach asking food since morning
Her pretty eyes now blank and fixed
She doesn’t ask aloud for alms
Gestures with outstretched palms
Resigned to her sorry fate
Isn’t God above really great !!
We curse them, we hate them
All the beggars of her likes
Eyesores on newly tiled pavements
Casting looks of disgust move on
Towards comforts destined for them
Good deeds in their previous births ?
Or the crinkled lines on their palms
The occasional wayfarer tosses
A rupee coin into her eager bowl
People who don’t count their losses
Glittering malls ,God’s Houses
Laugh aloud in mock glee
Their laughter falls on deaf ears
The beggar by the wayside
Patiently prays and hopes
For a filled bowl at end of day
Which for a bowl of rice she’ll pay
© Bishwanath Mukherjee
Plaintive and Poingnant Portrait
heart tearing that a human is abandoned. 6 billion people and growing. Hunger and disease will be as before, a ruthless thinner of the herd: Ebola, saars, typhus, malaria, AIDS, cancer, hepatitis, drug resistant viruses Will be the Scythes. We are lucky to have beaten the odds against extinction. I am sad for the poor, the dying, the emotionally lost.