SOWMEN MITTER | সৌমেন মিটার

Peter Thomson Well, you learn something every day... IRISH: THE FORGOTTEN WHITE SLAVES They came as slaves: human cargo transported on British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children. Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. Some were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives. We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade. But are we talking about African slavery? King James VI and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbour. The Irish slave trade

Sowmen Mitter Jack, you know Things change with the times As changeth you along the lines Preordained? Me, cynic and atheist, Non-believer; - have still some proxy wars to fight. The credo now seems to falter As never before. Never before did you know This much of gore. Never before did you sow Noxious weeds any more. Never before did you wail this much, Never before did she scream as such. Never before did the child feel so lorn. Still I've one more battle to fight Long drawn, for those that wield their might Must be shown the door ... Promise me Jack, you'll be there As you had been, tears afire, Holding out, holding off the baton.. Paul too would be there, and so would Rip Viva la Cinderella, my Gaza Strip!

Sowmen Mitter [To AB, my 'anonymous bystander' who'd hardly have an inkling... ] And no, - It's not the voyeur only That leers at you. Someone else - Someone you've known this long - The one that you once let you cuddle, Wary - some other might look at it Through some other prism; Uneasy, for it might come across as Some sort of incest. Leery that you might give in too much, Had urged you to linger on? And you, lain face down And the nether curled up as if To invite, incite, ignite the primeval loins, Kept doodling away and on. Or may be that was just my reading! Cos you flowers are always innocent! And we men -creepy aphids!! But the cleft, veiled under, hugging the mounds Lay there, throbbing, anticipating a rush As even the Niagra would bemoan. And it lies here still in my cells, Shorn of the threads, Oomph oozing out of dense desire, That heady, musky odour, And you sighing away ..