not even a corruption, less than a monument. She will sit
pulling on one thin cigarillo after another, will lift her teacup
in friendly greeting to the hills and loquacious stars
and the music will comb on through her hair,
telling her: Poetry must be raw like a side of beef,
should drip blood, remind you of sweat
and dusty slaughter and the epidermal crunch
and the sudden bullet to the head.
The sudden bullet in the head. Thus she sits, calmly gathered.
The lizard in her blinks and thinks. She will answer:
The dog was mad that bit me. Later, they cut out my third eye
and left it in a jar on a hospital shelf. That was when the drums began.
Since then I have met the patron saint of sots and cirrhosis who used to stand
in every corner until the police chased her down. She jumped into a taxi.
Now I have turned into the girl with the black guitar
and it was the dog who died. Such is blood.
The rustle of Ernestina’s skirt will not reveal the sinful vine
or the cicada crumbling to a pair of wings at her feet.
She will smile and say: I like a land where babies
are ripped out of their graves, where the church
leads to practical results like illegitimate children and bad marriages
quite out of proportion to the current population, and your neighbour
is kidnapped by demons and the young wither without complaint
and pious women know the sexual ecstasy of dance and peace is kept
by short men with a Bible and five big knuckles on their righteous hands.
Religion has made drunks of us all. The old goat bleats.
We are killing ourselves. I like an incestuous land. Stars, be silent.
Let Ernestina speak.
So what if the roses are in disarray? She will rise
with a look of terror too real to be comical.
The conspiracy in the greenhouse the committee of good women
They have marked her down
They are coming the dead dogs the yellow popes
They are coming the choristers of stone
We have been bombed silly out of our minds.
Waiter, bring me something cold and hard to drink.
Somewhere there is a desert waiting for me
and someday I will walk into it.
English
Hiren Bhattacharya (b. 1932)
These My Words
In these, the words that have caressed
The orchards of my dreams.
In the grace of a lifestyle,
The intimate warmth of time.
I have no inventions of my own.
Like a farmer
I roll words on my tongue,
Tasting every one.
I hold them in my palm
To find how warm they are.
I know words are the lusty offspring
Of man’s noble creation.
I am a mere poet;
And in these words that I have relayed
From other shoulders,
Is man’s cruel experience
And the maulings of history.
Translated from the Assamiya by D.N. Bezboruah
J.P. Das (b. 1936)
After Gujarat
After Gujarat,
will there be poetry?
Was it possible
to write poetry
after Alexandria was burnt down?
After Auschwitz,
after Hiroshima and Vietnam,
after the Emergency
and Babri Masjid,
after 9/11 and Iraq?
It’s not possible
to banish poetry.
Poetry comes back effortless
to Plato’s Republic,
to Stalin’s Siberia,
to Pokhran and Kalahandi.
Poetry follows
the footprints of violence
as it chronicles
the descent of man.
Like history
poetry has no end.
Poetry is written
despite fatwas and bans.
Poetry laughs at Gulag,
ignores the censor’s blue pencil
and the fundamentalist’s frown.
Poetry is written
against the backdrop
of bonfire of books.
After Gujarat
there will be poetry
about Gujarat itself.
It will begin
with the shame of Ayodhya,
and track the bloody trail
to Godhra to Gujarat,
on to Mumbai.
When Babri arises again,
poetry will affirm
that temples are built
not with blood-scribed bricks
and stones carved with hatred,
temples are built,
like poetry,
with imagination and faith
in the hearts of men.
After Gujarat,
poems will be written
to affirm the truth
that there is no Ayodhya
outside of the poet’s
epic imagination.
Translated from the Oriya by the poet
Arvind (b. 1950)
First Poem
My best poem
Is the one
That I began to write
On a smouldering evening,
In the eighteenth year of my life.
That’s the prettiest of my poems.
An unknown feeling stirred in my mind
It was a very tender feeling and I was shy
I couldn’t comprehend it
Nor could I articulate it
It couldn’t be kept suppressed either.
I picked up a piece of paper and a pen
I had no knowledge of rhyme rhythm or metre
My feeling,
Like a rainy season nullah
Gushed from my eyes.
My hand trembled
It scribbled something, rubbed something out.
That wet piece of paper,
Those smudged words,
That was my first poem
The best of all my poems.
Translated from the Dogri by Shivanath
Govindadas Jha (1570-1640)
Homage to Jayadeva
Jayadeva, the paragon of poets,
Is the divine wish-fulfilling tree,
In the shade of whose verdant foliage of songs,
My heart, tormented with the heat of worldly existence
Derives a rare soothing cool, and yearns
To submerge itself into it more and more!
Glory to Jayadeva, blessed with Padmavati’s boundless love,
The master supreme among poets inspired to captivate in word
and rhyme
The divine dalliance of Krishna with Radha!
But low and mean as I am,
I find no means by which to receive and express
The glory and grandeur inherent in Hari’s love and life.
But for the shower of grace divine,
The task is all beyond me.
So, with abject surrender at your feet,
With a leaf of grass held between my teeth,
I, Govindadas, the petty poet, beg you, O Radha, O Krishna, to
inspire me.
And make my ardent desire and dream come true.
Translated from the Maithili by Jagdish Prasad Karna
Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)
From My Explanation
I am the poet of the present, brother:
No prophet of the future am I.
You may call me a poet or refuse to call me one;
I keep my mouth shut and bear with it all.
Some say: ‘Mind, your place in the future will be with
the tribe of stubborn
women! Where is the message of
the Eternal such as comes out of the pen of Rabindranath?’
So they all blame me;
yet I am content to sing the morning tune of Bhairabi.
My poet friends read my writings and despair of me.
They sigh for me.
Say they: ‘He was useful. But in ministering to politics
he is becoming steadily useless, he has given up studies
and has gone to the dogs.’
Some say: ‘He has been devoured by his wife.’
Some say again: ‘In jail he used only to play cards, has
got fat and become useless.’
Some others say: ‘It was well you were in jail. We
would rather you went to jail.’
Says the guru: ‘So you have commenced relieving people
of their beards with your sword!’
I have a lover who in a letter every Saturday abuses me
and says: ‘You are the bird with a notoriously coarse voice.’
Translated from the Bangla by Badusha Chakravarty
Rituraj (b. 1940)
Poets
Poets live to an old age
Though they’re always getting killed off
they are still around.
Making friends
with fools and lumpens in these selfish times
thrusting poetry books into their hands
poets laugh for days on end
they howl first and then turn silent
but the cursed poems never shut up
Poets find birds in children
and girls in birds
and flowers in girls
collect the seeds of all they’ve seen
and sow themselves together with the seeds
Poets hide like seeds
only to return in new forms
At least now their breed is in no danger of extinction.
Translated from the Hindi by Manjit Kaur Bhatia, Christi Merrill, Daniel Weissbort and Nalini Taneja
Vallathol Narayana Menon (1878-1958)
From Faith and Erudition
4
Now rises from among those seated just outside,
All wise and erudite, whose prayers never cease,
A man of Kerala. His noble brow is marked
With sandal paste; and as he goes outside to make
His triple journey round the triple-hallowed halls
His lips still tremble with the might of Krishna’s names.
5
But now another rises, follows close the first
And lowly in his bearing, low-voiced in his speech:
‘A work there is—or call it play—that I have made
Where lurk such lapses—will yourself be pleased to read?
‘You cavil at the common tongue—but, Patteri,
I have no comfort else.’ It’s Bhattathiri then?
Whose thousand flowers wrought of seamless Sanskrit verse
This house of holiness and its great Master praise,
Whose words ensure the good? It is indeed. To him
The Lord has freely given of his choicest gifts.
Who pleads with him to cast his eye of majesty
On screeds which reek of sweat from common peasant hands?
It’s Puntanam, whose poems all extol the Lord,
Whose tuneful canticles rival the nightingale.
But Bhattathiri answers in a sharper tone:
‘These ditties in Malayalam, show something else!’
Alas! That pride which comes of mastering the texts
Should fasten on this knower of the ultimate.
6
O speech divine, perfected when the gods were young!
This deed of thine is ill, to spurn Kerala’s tongue!
Puntanam, crushed beneath the weight of hopes belied,
Soon vanished from that place. But mark the sequel now.
7
That night the sickness fell which long in him had slept
And mightily it seized all Bhattathiri’s limbs.
With straining sinews, writhing as if he is aflame,
In vain he straggles, crying, ‘O Lord, O Krishna, help!’
And when at last he wins to this near side of sleep
A tender youth appears before his reddened eyes:
O rare is his enchantment! Yellow is his robe,
His hair a cloud of rain where plumes of peacock dance,
A gold chain round his waist, which tinkles as he moves,
He holds a bamboo flute as one may hold a flower.
Now mutely does the Brahmin hear what Krishna says;
In flute-like voice thus speaks the bearer of the flute:
‘The Malayalam poet’s grief you must relieve;
Your malady can have no other cure but that.
For learning indeed Bhattathiri has a claim;
The burning faith of Puntanam is dearer far.’
Translated from the Malayalam by Vijay Nambisan
Nilmani Phookan (b. 1933)
Poetry Is for Those Who Wouldn’t Read It
A poet had stated
poetry is for those who wouldn’t read it
for the wounds in their hearts
for their fingers where thorns are embedded
for the anguish and the joy
of the living and the dead
for the outcry that trundles
down the road day and night
for the desert sun
for the meaning of death
and the vacuity of living
for the dark stones cursed by ruins
for the red patch between the lusty lips of maidens
for the yellow butterflies with wings spread on barbed wires
for the insects, the snails and the moss
for the bird flying lonely down the afternoon sky
for the anxiety in fire and water
for the mothers of five hundred million sick and starving children
for the fear of the moon turning red as blood
for each stilled moment
for the world that keeps turning
for one kiss from you
that man of dust will become dust again,
for that old saying.
Translated from the Assamiya by Pradip Acharya
Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896-1982)
If There Are No Flowers
If there are no flowers, I can flirt with nettles
In the heart of autumn, I can flirt with vanished blooms
I can flirt with the vanity of saints
Holding the whole galaxy in their embrace
The poet’s vision can scan anything
I can flirt with the entire gamut of despondent scenes
Taking everything in my stride
I can flirt with demure, hidden sparks
A loving look has moved beauty’s instruments to speech
I can flirt with the chords of this harp string
If the beloved’s goodwill is what life hinges upon
Then I can flirt with the axis of life
I can transform this simple ambience into a conundrum
I can flirt with the eerie suggestion of your eyes
The smile on your lips seems to suggest
That I can flirt with the victims of seductive eyes
Corpses can start breathing afresh
I can so flirt with moving, marching shrines
Fingers that failed to fondle your curls
Are fingers that can surely flirt with the stars
My grief, Firaq, rivals my gaiety
I can flirt with friends even in misery
Translated from the Urdu by Noorul Hasan
Smita Agarwal (b. 1958)
Daywatch in the Scriptorium
The guests have departed.
The raging fever gone.
This blank page beckons me
To give it something of myself.
Oak leaves turn in the wind,
Moss-green on silver. The
Mesh of needles on a coniferous
Branch, flat as a palm, strains
The sunlight. Behind a hill, it
Seems as if an invisible Indian
Chief has hunkered down to puff
Out spreading clouds of peace
A rufous-throated nuthatch
Is disappointed. The apples
are small, hard and green.
It flies away boring through
Haze and rows of hills.
Fair weather, like a leafed twig
Suddenly landing at my feet,
Don’t welsh on me. Green lion*
Day in June, live on in memory.
English
Sunil Gangopadhyay (b. 1934)
City of Memories
People at the borders speak prose
In ghettos and factories they speak prose
During the day the city speaks prose
All contemporary miseries speak prose
The parched field and the rough unkempt man speak prose
The entire civilisation of scissors and knives talk prose.
What then shall poetry be about?
Translated from the Bangla by Kalyan Roy and Bonnie MacDougall
Bhartrhari (c. 400 CE)
Her Face Is Not the Moon, Nor Are Her Eyes
Her face is not the moon, nor are her eyes
Twin lotuses, nor are her arms pure gold:
She’s flesh and bone. What lies the poets told!
Ah, but we love her, we believe the lies.
Translated from the Sanskrit by John Brough
Dilip Chitre (b. 1938)
Evenings in Iowa City, Iowa
On top of being a foreigner
I am already an old fart
In this pimple-faced town
Infested with poets and decadent dons
Columbuses on Guggenheims
Magellans on Fulbrights
Vasco da Gamas supported by National Endowments
Set out from this little port to discover
The world we left behind
Statistics show that about the age of forty
Most men go berserk
Even those to whom their women try to be extra kind
Are we already bitter or are we still bewildered
Filling our brown bags with the bounty of America
Wandering through libraries
Boozing and growing long hair or beards
The true exterior of the expatriate
And conversing in exasperated voices
Sometimes even writing poems
While the natives mow their lawns
These My Words Page 4
