Joseph Conrad Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Joseph Conrad
The Polish-English writer,
A merchant ship man, a sea man,
A captain, a seafarer
With a chequered life
Dividing in between,
Spent at different places
As for historic upheavals and repercussions
Taking it place then
And destiny taking him
To England finally.

The memories of distraught life,
Displacement and dislocation
Never left him behind,
Found consolation with the sea,
Served the marine
As it was his last hope
And recreated it
With diaries and memoirs
To turn them into the souvenir
Of literature

Starting from Ukraine, Poland
To Austria, Russia,
That very part
Which the English-speaking
Knew it not so much,
He delved upon and drew it from
His imagery and sea life
As did it John Masefield
As a sea man, a ship man.

But is not easy to lead
A mariner's life
And those who are at sea
Know it best
How hard is life there,
How the vicissitudes of life,
The struggles and hardships
To be borne and compromised?

Polish descent, ancestry,
Austrian historicity,
Russian legacy and hegemony,
How to shake them off
The connections
Which many understand it not
That of being a non-English writer,
Like Somerset Maugham
Trying to learn and adopt and adapt to
Conditions prevailing around?