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Showing posts from 2014

Gazalo en Esperanton

La deziro, kiu ne havas la pasion, ĝi estas kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron, La sopiro, kiu ne estas maltrankvila, ĝi estas kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. En kantoj, en sonoj, en la muziko, miaj oreloj serĉas la notojn de via voĉo, Ĉiu al ili estas kiel sensignifa parolo, kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. Kiel la floro kiu havas nenian dolĉan bonodoron, kiel la memoro ŝtelita per la tempo, La vivo pasas en la enuiga senanimado, kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. El la ĉielo de la silenton verŝas senĉese, senfine unu milda pluvado de mia larmoj, Sennuba estas la grandega malpleno de la ĉielo, kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. Plenigu bonvolu ĉi tiujn senfruktajn ĉambrojn kun la multaj koloroj de via ridado, Ĉi tiu domo staras ombra, sen ajna ŝirmejo, kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. Popolu la mallumo kun lo steloj, la malgrandaj sferoj de la briletantaj delicoj, Alie, ekzistas nur unu vakua malfeliĉo, kiel gazaloj kiuj ne havas beheron. Metu viajn piedojn tra mia sojlo,

These young people

These young people today, I tell you, Always on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. Everyday they are changing their picture One time, two times three times. Why? They have only one face, no? They are also not saying anything properly Nowadays everything is 140 characters as if all life is lived in telegrams. And what is this putting # in front of Everything? Making for bad reading only. And no grammar: no comma, no full stop. Arre baba, they are sending message on WhatsApp and I am understanding :-) But what is :-8? and what is <3? Less than 3 is 2 or 1. But what is I<3U? And there is this thing called Instagram Where they are putting photos of what they ate. Arre, if your mummy finds out that you ate Costly, costly pizza instead of home-made Chapati-bhaji what she will say? Neighbour's boy - engineeering graduate, Good job, good home -showed me to use YouTube on phone. Very good thing YouTube. Have you seen the video of cat playing piano? Or the ca

If— (for the modern morality)

If you can keep your fucking head when all about you      Are motherfucking losing theirs and blaming it on you,  If you can trust yourself when all suckers doubt you,     And make no allowance for their dickheaded doubting too;  If you can bleeding wait and not be pissed out by waiting,     Or being lied about, lie bigger, higher, stronger, Or being hated, teach those cunts to hate you even more,     Bitch you can't look too good, nor talk too smart: If you can fucking dream—and make tons of money selling dreams;      If you can bloody think—and an beat the competition blue;  If you can claims credit for all Triumph     and make some cunt take explain Disaster     And absolutely don't treat them just the same;  If you can hear the frikkin’ truth you’ve spoken     And fart a bigger faff to cover your ass, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,     And find out the guy who broke 'em and bust him his balls: If you can make one fuckin’ heap of all your winnings    

This poem has attained ... nirvana

This... is a hungry poem. It is    not meant to be a hungry poem. It is meant to be a contented satisfied poem that does not embarrass its government. But it has nothing to feed on so it's hungry. This... is an angry poem. It is angry about potholes and poverty and the crowded buses and the rickety trains and the baby-eating rats in the hospitals and the cop-killing rich kids driving their dads' cars and the police who lock up youths in the cells and beat them to death and the miners cutting down the forests and the army's atrocities on the Northeast and the Naxals' butchering of hapless tribals and the costs of onions and tomatoes and ever rising petrol and diesel prices and and and and and and and and and and and and... This is a des..perate poem. It wants to talk to someone who'll listen and tell it not to commit suicide and tell it to hope and love and be friends and see the roses and the rivers and the koels and the moonlight and hea

Appeal to Ladies-log

Why ladies-log you are coming in general dabba on Sundays only? You are making the gents-log to behave extra carefully, and not to using maderchod-benchod language which is very unnatural for us. Over and above ji, your gents-log are becoming extra-aggressive and you couples are taking so much place where everyday 4-5 men are standing only. And what is really sad is that ji all the tight jeans-wali ladies are going in ladies compartment only and only burkha and behenji type ladies are coming in general dabba. So lukkha-type boys are hanging from footboard only to make distance from you, and they are blocking us decent gentleman-type gents from boarding and getting off the local and that is causing very much tension.

Shaving in Siliguri

There is, I suppose, a gruesome fascination In watching blood spread across shaving foam: Crimson, then red, then pink And then a dull, gory grey Washed off in hot water and a scar to remember. There could be a different image, a wish even, Of blood oozing from a wrist slit with the razor, As it takes away the stasis of middle-classiyat Eyes glued to the sight, the heart beating excitedly, Till all sound stops and lights dim In that cockroached lodge room. No, it’s no romantic place to die. Much better to plunge into the raped Teesta – Virgin mountain stream now Pregnant with mud and moving zombie-like To her doom in the silt of the Brahmaputra. The train rings its corporate deadline. I have fifteen minutes to dress and pack: The Kanchan Kanya Express leaves at nine-thirty sharp. (Longlisted by the RaedLeafPoetry-India 2013  Awards )

From Chellammal to Bharathi

Dear poet-husband, Do you know how to buy one hand of flowers, Or roll a round chapati? You who stand up for women Can you cut up love and affection And boil it up in the sambar Like I do for you every day? Well, don’t. Just plait our daughter’s hair And plait in a hand-length of jasmine And send her off to school. Else just make pongal in the morning And put it in a clean dabba before Your daughter is awake and clamours For her toothepaste, uniform. No. Well, alright. Can you bring rice to a boil, So its aroma makes the house blossom? Even simpler. Can you show happiness, day after day, While washing clothes and folding them, Sweeping and mopping the house, Washing dishes thick with congealed ghee And never, ever complain While your wife writes silly poems? No? Not even for a day? You can make the flowers bloom, And the spring come early. Just make a crying child smile. You make words dance and sing, Just put a child to sleep. You paint pictures with wor

You

it is still too early to say what memories will crystallise around you for now it is the bedpan not emptied from last use and your room smells of ointments and pills and your damning of the whole world but once my tears have dried and the puja flowers withered perhaps you will freeze i will put in the black and white photos on a boat in a lake in a cheap hill station when you first let me down and the mundan of the first-born where your mother made such a fuss and that stupid photo from a middling age of the reception of some cousin of yours and yes the shaadi ka video and the cassette guiding our kid reciting nursery rhymes certainly all the unrecorded fights for you never earned enough and drank too much and never bought enough flowers and that never do well son you gave me who lamented loudly at the funeral and your sisters let us not talk about your sisters no I will not make up a box of memories because you know I would not myself be reduced to an

fly

watching a fly that's thrashing about I come to think of the struggles in my own bowl of soup Published in Cattails, May 2014

آس

 ِِاس یورش زیست میں سسک-سسک کے ہم سانس لیتے رہے کہ جدوجہد میں ابر بہار کی آپ آس دیتے رہے تا زندگی پرچھائوں سے بھی چپ-چپ کے چلتے رہے گلہ یہی کہ بس نور کاذب کی وہ آس دیتے رہے دیکھتے رہے ہم خواہشوں کو بیبسی میں گھلتے ہئے پر چشم بستہ پھر بھی نئے خوابوں کی آس دیتے رہے جو محبت کے ریگستان میں گمراہ ہی بھٹکتے رہے اس مایوس منظر میں افق کوہ تور کی آس دیتے رہے خنجروں نے اتنی درد نا دی جو دی فرجی امیدوں نے پر خورشید نوروز ہر زخم بھرنے کی آس دیتے رہے پروانے تھے شب سیاہ میں ، شمع کی اور بڈھتے ہئے یہ جلتے پنکھ میرے بہار ازل کی آس دیتے رہے خانہ بردوش ہم واقف ہےں بند و بیپناہ دروازوں سے پر اس دل کے ناخدا دہلیز باز کی آس دیتے رہے