On a High Chair

‘Why do you not rather write a poem yourself —’
I asked, smiling a bitter smile; but the hunk of shadow didn’t reply.
I got then, he is not a poet — but a pretender:
atop the stack of manuscripts, versions, footnotes, ink, pen;
on a high chair; he sits —
a perennial, ageless professor; toothless — his eyes are filled with rheum of incapacity —
living on a wage of a thousand a month.
Another thousand and a half he earns
by vivisecting the flesh and intestinal worms
of the poets who are deceased.
Who lived in hunger, sought love, and swam
in shark-infested waters.

(This is my translation of a Bengali poem, ‘সমারূঢ়’, by Jibanananda Das)