Impotence does not always occur
Between the legs
Impotence does not always happen
While in bed

When your voice chokes and stutters
While taking up a just cause
When you prefer the veil of a lie
And give your conscience a pause

When your factor of safety
Makes you shy from the fore
When a lone voice crying for justice
Makes you deaf to the core

When the dying on the street
Evoke no sympathy
When your heart is flooded
With waves of apathy

When an act of charity
Seems so totally alien
When you’ve sold your soul
At the altar of affluence

When the plundering of nature
Leaves you unmoved
When all that you do
Is solely for your own good

When all your achievements
Can be captured in one word – money
When you did not affect even one life
Leave alone many

All these cases
Are impotence of a kind
A conceptual construct
Of impotence redefined

Each one of us living
Will leave one day
Without our possessions
Shall depart from this fray

Only we shall leave behind
Our deeds, for others to say
Whether we were potent or impotent
During our decades long stay

Subir Chakraborty / 15th June 2019