Poetry of Keshav Malik

Art Critic and Poet, Keshav Malik received Padma Shri for his contribution to Literature and Arts by the Government of India in 1991. I have known Keshav Malik from the seventies when his poems were published in international anthologies but primarily in anthologies edited by Pritish Nandy. I remember him from Anees Jung’s Youth Times. I also remember his poem published in Strangertime edited by Nandy during that same period –

To sense what is and what is not of importance
Is of some importance.
Your double in the mirror, for instance
Has little substance
Except a double double in a doting eye’s transparence
And there rediscover self anew in a taking tense(As distinct from the mere mimicking presence).
And be broken your long sleep or trance
In your body’s ambience,
A double gives offence.

Pen Drawing of Keshav Malik by Amitabh Mitra

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Poems from Makiwane

two blind men
at makiwane
held each other and screamed at
a broken sky
asking for alms
they wanted to smell
light
they wanted to taste light
they asked for a reason
and the unforgiving long years
of silence
of fettered undergrowth
a sun remained quiet
a wall grew taller
we only heard them shuffling
two blind men
at makiwane
mdantsane.

Poem and Pastel Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Poetry of Liu Xiaobo, Recited by Amitabh Mitra

Watercolor interpretation of the Poetry of Liu Xiaobo

The Poetry of Liu Xiaobo 2

Longing to Escape

for my wife

abandon the imagined martyrs
I long to lie at your feet, besides
being tied to death this is
my one duty
when the heart’s mirror-
clear, an enduring happiness

your toes will not break
a cat closes in behind
you, I want to shoo him away
as he turns his head, extends
a sharp claw toward me
deep within his blue eyes
there seems to be a prison
if I blindly step out
of with even the slightest
step I’d turn into a fish.

Published in Pen American Centre
Pen Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

the poetry of doctor/poet Agostinho Neto

There on the horizon
the fire
and the dark silhouettes of the imbondeiro trees
with their arms raised 1 in the air the green smell of burnt palm trees


On the road
the line of Bailundo porters
groaning under their loads of crueira


In the room
the sweet sweet-eyed mulatress retouching her face with rouge and rice-powder the woman under her many clothes moving her hips on the bed the sleepless man thinking of buying knives and forks to eat with at a table




On the sky the reflections
of the fire
and the silhouettes of the blacks at the drums with their arms raised in the air the warm tune of marimbas


On the road the porters
in the room the mulatress
in the bed the sleepless man


The burning coals consuming consuming with fire the warm country of the horizons.


Agostinho Neto , Medical Doctor and a Poet, he was the first President of Angola.

Pastel Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

The Poetry of Liu Xiaobo 1

A Small Rat in Prison

for Little Xia

a small rat passes through the iron bars
paces back and forth on the window ledge
the peeling walls are watching him
the blood-filled mosquitoes are watching him
he even draws the moon from the sky, silver
shadow casts down
beauty, as if in flight.

a very gentryman the rat tonight
doesn’t eat nor drink nor grind his teeth
as he stares with his sly bright eyes
strolling in the moonlight.

5. 26. 1999

Published by Pen American Centre
Watercolor Drawing by Amitabh Mitra