Kanchi Abhijan
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
A POEM ON A DROP OF MOONBEAM AND OTHER POEMS
A POEM ON A DROP OF MOONBEAM
The boat melts and becomes a part of the stream.
With the boat melts the boatman
Who sells fish in the market.
With the melting boat flows the golden saliva
Of fish buyers.
The stream of saliva and river goes together,runs like a snake.
Let them imagine the river as a snake-goddess,
Those who are scared of snakes.
Let them build ghats and temples on its banks.
The river itself creates space to offer pinda.
One day a stranger reaches at the bank of the river
Carrying a drop of moonbeam in his purse.
To pick his purse a group follows him
Braying for his blood
To have that drop of moonbeam
More than fifty states of this planet
Are engaged in war and hatred.
To protect that one drop of moonbeam
There was only that safety boat in the river
The boatman looks like a beloved one to the stranger.
And the river reminds him
The forgotten face of his childhood love.
With that drop of moonbeam the stranger jumps in to the boat
To be safe from the rogues and from those war-loving states,
When the boat starts melting
When the boatman becomes a part of the stream
When the stream flows like a cobra
Where did the stranger go?
Did the river swallow him?
Did the time wither him out?
Did the moonbeam murder him with love?
Absolutely there is no news of that stranger in today’s newspaper.Nowhere on earth.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A TEMPLE FOR RAMA
The walls will be made ofThe half-burnt busts
Of those living human beings
Who have been chopped and burnt.
On the half-baked skin
Will be carved yakshas, nagas,Poses of sringara.
The sanctum sanctorumwill be born off raped women.
The chopped head of a pregnant womanwill adorn the crowning slab.
A temple will be built.
The roads from all the
Riot-torn villages and cities
Of this countryLead to this temple.
The houses are on fire, so also the hearts.
Only for this temple
All the sacred rivers turned red.
The maryada purusottam will be sanctified
With the sacrifice of human beings.
Your highness, please come,
Be enthroned.
The throne of ill-will and devastation,
Is waiting for you.
Blood-loving sanyasi
Chant the hymns of peace
From the Vedas.
You the assassin of people
Fly your saffron banner
Made of the chopped heads.
You the hoodwinked, the spineless,
Declare with pride,
You are the subject of ramarajya.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A SUMMER SONG
(1)
I am on the dias
To sing a song or two.
This song is like
A woodpecker’s pecking
At the trunk of a drumstick tree,
A pot of rice
On a cold hearth,
This song is made of
Many orphans who knew no breast feeding.
This song
A bundle of ribs
In the scorching sunshine.
I have filtered a few
Wonderful, rare breath
From amidst the corpses.
Come, listen to my song.
(2)
In it
Is the twang of a world of dry, barren land,
Is the yard of boulders of black-hills,
Is the long, sinewy hand of dead woods,
Is a tangle of millions of distended bellies
From the bottom of a dry pond
Is an half-open lotus.
In it lies
That rare wonderful song.
(3)
This song is not mine.
I am not singing this song.
The flame of this song burns me.
What you hear from me as a song
Is nothing but my smoldering soul.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A SONG FOR RICE
I salute those poets in whose poetry
The pain of empty belies
Is led bare
I salute
Those red banners which
Shout for hungry mass,
Those red-eyed rulers,
Those merchants of letters
Who survive on selling hunger
I salute
Those bards singing
On the village street, to the
Sermon preacher, the teacher
Who lecture on reading and writing
I salute
That woman who bartered her baby
The village headman, the officers
From the capital, the village deity
Who still hungers for blood
After a series of famine
I salute
The watchmen of store houses,
The destructive insects,
Those poets and film makers
Who are generous in selling hunger.
My salute is to those
Who knows nothing of hunger
And also to those who becomes
King in a democracy
Throwing light on hunger.
I salute, I mean it.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
ROMANTICS
No one will be free from hunger
With the fragrance of flowers.
The gardens are wiped out
As per your order, your Highness.
The song of a cuckoo cannot wipe tears,
The susurrus of a spring cannot allay our pain.
Forget the eunuch’s song of the spring—
So thundered your Highness!
You said, let the poems be warm
Like blood and fire,
Let them be unfurled like banners,
Let them spread like wild fire in a forest.
As you said, poetry cannot be a pot-full of rice
Or a long stick.
Does the flower stop blooming
Just because hunger is there?
Don’t you think
Singing for the spring
Is a part of life?
Always you kicked me out
For my love and dream.
You say you sing for the human
But you leave them naked on the street.
I am a bard of love
Suffering hunger all the way.
I am a dreamer
And my dream blooms on my poverty.
Whatever you call me,
An escapist or a eunuch,
I don’t mind.
As I know, my love for life is more than yours.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
The boat melts and becomes a part of the stream.
With the boat melts the boatman
Who sells fish in the market.
With the melting boat flows the golden saliva
Of fish buyers.
The stream of saliva and river goes together,runs like a snake.
Let them imagine the river as a snake-goddess,
Those who are scared of snakes.
Let them build ghats and temples on its banks.
The river itself creates space to offer pinda.
One day a stranger reaches at the bank of the river
Carrying a drop of moonbeam in his purse.
To pick his purse a group follows him
Braying for his blood
To have that drop of moonbeam
More than fifty states of this planet
Are engaged in war and hatred.
To protect that one drop of moonbeam
There was only that safety boat in the river
The boatman looks like a beloved one to the stranger.
And the river reminds him
The forgotten face of his childhood love.
With that drop of moonbeam the stranger jumps in to the boat
To be safe from the rogues and from those war-loving states,
When the boat starts melting
When the boatman becomes a part of the stream
When the stream flows like a cobra
Where did the stranger go?
Did the river swallow him?
Did the time wither him out?
Did the moonbeam murder him with love?
Absolutely there is no news of that stranger in today’s newspaper.Nowhere on earth.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A TEMPLE FOR RAMA
The walls will be made ofThe half-burnt busts
Of those living human beings
Who have been chopped and burnt.
On the half-baked skin
Will be carved yakshas, nagas,Poses of sringara.
The sanctum sanctorumwill be born off raped women.
The chopped head of a pregnant womanwill adorn the crowning slab.
A temple will be built.
The roads from all the
Riot-torn villages and cities
Of this countryLead to this temple.
The houses are on fire, so also the hearts.
Only for this temple
All the sacred rivers turned red.
The maryada purusottam will be sanctified
With the sacrifice of human beings.
Your highness, please come,
Be enthroned.
The throne of ill-will and devastation,
Is waiting for you.
Blood-loving sanyasi
Chant the hymns of peace
From the Vedas.
You the assassin of people
Fly your saffron banner
Made of the chopped heads.
You the hoodwinked, the spineless,
Declare with pride,
You are the subject of ramarajya.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A SUMMER SONG
(1)
I am on the dias
To sing a song or two.
This song is like
A woodpecker’s pecking
At the trunk of a drumstick tree,
A pot of rice
On a cold hearth,
This song is made of
Many orphans who knew no breast feeding.
This song
A bundle of ribs
In the scorching sunshine.
I have filtered a few
Wonderful, rare breath
From amidst the corpses.
Come, listen to my song.
(2)
In it
Is the twang of a world of dry, barren land,
Is the yard of boulders of black-hills,
Is the long, sinewy hand of dead woods,
Is a tangle of millions of distended bellies
From the bottom of a dry pond
Is an half-open lotus.
In it lies
That rare wonderful song.
(3)
This song is not mine.
I am not singing this song.
The flame of this song burns me.
What you hear from me as a song
Is nothing but my smoldering soul.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
A SONG FOR RICE
I salute those poets in whose poetry
The pain of empty belies
Is led bare
I salute
Those red banners which
Shout for hungry mass,
Those red-eyed rulers,
Those merchants of letters
Who survive on selling hunger
I salute
Those bards singing
On the village street, to the
Sermon preacher, the teacher
Who lecture on reading and writing
I salute
That woman who bartered her baby
The village headman, the officers
From the capital, the village deity
Who still hungers for blood
After a series of famine
I salute
The watchmen of store houses,
The destructive insects,
Those poets and film makers
Who are generous in selling hunger.
My salute is to those
Who knows nothing of hunger
And also to those who becomes
King in a democracy
Throwing light on hunger.
I salute, I mean it.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
ROMANTICS
No one will be free from hunger
With the fragrance of flowers.
The gardens are wiped out
As per your order, your Highness.
The song of a cuckoo cannot wipe tears,
The susurrus of a spring cannot allay our pain.
Forget the eunuch’s song of the spring—
So thundered your Highness!
You said, let the poems be warm
Like blood and fire,
Let them be unfurled like banners,
Let them spread like wild fire in a forest.
As you said, poetry cannot be a pot-full of rice
Or a long stick.
Does the flower stop blooming
Just because hunger is there?
Don’t you think
Singing for the spring
Is a part of life?
Always you kicked me out
For my love and dream.
You say you sing for the human
But you leave them naked on the street.
I am a bard of love
Suffering hunger all the way.
I am a dreamer
And my dream blooms on my poverty.
Whatever you call me,
An escapist or a eunuch,
I don’t mind.
As I know, my love for life is more than yours.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
WRATH
WRATH
No, nothing happens.
The old leaf takes leave of the tree
The sweet water of the river
Runs into salt pit of the sea.
The god takes incarnations
Yet the number of the degraded,
Of the sinners, of the demons
Goes on increasing.
On the top of the temple
Still flutter the lord’s banner.
In the news are
The photographs
Of a village without its inhabitant,
An interview of a mother
Who has sold her newborn baby
And the manifesto
Of the leaders who play with the country
As if it were a football.
On the road stretches
The hands of a fireball
The poems are written in red letters
The parliament and assembly sessions
Are flushed with storms.
Everyone is silent in his place
The scenes, the events, the rebellions,
The calamities, everything is silent
The blood-sucking leeches are silent
The bleeding poor are silent.
Will you please shut up?
Don’t disturb this mystic silence
With your terror-filled words!
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
No, nothing happens.
The old leaf takes leave of the tree
The sweet water of the river
Runs into salt pit of the sea.
The god takes incarnations
Yet the number of the degraded,
Of the sinners, of the demons
Goes on increasing.
On the top of the temple
Still flutter the lord’s banner.
In the news are
The photographs
Of a village without its inhabitant,
An interview of a mother
Who has sold her newborn baby
And the manifesto
Of the leaders who play with the country
As if it were a football.
On the road stretches
The hands of a fireball
The poems are written in red letters
The parliament and assembly sessions
Are flushed with storms.
Everyone is silent in his place
The scenes, the events, the rebellions,
The calamities, everything is silent
The blood-sucking leeches are silent
The bleeding poor are silent.
Will you please shut up?
Don’t disturb this mystic silence
With your terror-filled words!
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
HISTORY OF ORISSA
HISTORY OF ODISHA
Nobody knew when some
Kapila BhoiDisappeared in the dark
When we went on discussing about
The great king Kapilendradev.
Excavation revealed
Palace, temple, fort, vihara.
A palimpsest was created
Cleaning the bloody inscription
Of the royal glory.
From under the heavy buttocks
Of the kings were extracted
The past glory, the lost heritage.
From the distant lands came savants,
From some corners came the marauders.
The Lord Jagannath retreated
To the forest, where he was worshipped.
These royal words
Gave birth to effeminate words
Yes, I forget, where didKapila Bhoi get lost?
Carving the hips of dancing girls
On the walls of Konark
He lost his hands,
Carrying the palanquin of the pundits
He broke his soldiers,
Fighting for the nincompoop king
He shed much of his blood,
Working as a bonded labourer
His feet became a pair of torn slippers
The past and future
Of a race brim over
With Kapila’s blood.
The fool that he was
It did not occur to him
That letters and words are only too wily
And blood of human is being ephemeral.
Wiping the forehead of time
The drunken pen lay comfortablyBetween the thighs
Of a dancing girl.
Last nightI set fire to all my history books.
In my eyes, on my lips
In my soul, there isOnly one name
And that is Kapila Bhoi.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
Nobody knew when some
Kapila BhoiDisappeared in the dark
When we went on discussing about
The great king Kapilendradev.
Excavation revealed
Palace, temple, fort, vihara.
A palimpsest was created
Cleaning the bloody inscription
Of the royal glory.
From under the heavy buttocks
Of the kings were extracted
The past glory, the lost heritage.
From the distant lands came savants,
From some corners came the marauders.
The Lord Jagannath retreated
To the forest, where he was worshipped.
These royal words
Gave birth to effeminate words
Yes, I forget, where didKapila Bhoi get lost?
Carving the hips of dancing girls
On the walls of Konark
He lost his hands,
Carrying the palanquin of the pundits
He broke his soldiers,
Fighting for the nincompoop king
He shed much of his blood,
Working as a bonded labourer
His feet became a pair of torn slippers
The past and future
Of a race brim over
With Kapila’s blood.
The fool that he was
It did not occur to him
That letters and words are only too wily
And blood of human is being ephemeral.
Wiping the forehead of time
The drunken pen lay comfortablyBetween the thighs
Of a dancing girl.
Last nightI set fire to all my history books.
In my eyes, on my lips
In my soul, there isOnly one name
And that is Kapila Bhoi.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
LETTERS
LETTERS
You came so often
With the hands of the rain-Drona
To wipe out the moon from the sky
And the starlight.
Have you ever put out brightness?
You have pierced the heart
Of a bird who is fond of flying
With arrows, swords and missiles.
Have you ever stopped its mad flight?
Every time my breath has torn apart
Nets of your conspiracy.
Accessing your deadly secrets
I have sung in the centre of your heart.
Checking the flow
I have put on guard
The indestructible peepul of letters.
You have hacked me again and again
I have painted your room with my blood and wound.
Now your sword, supposed to chop me,
Turns into a lotus.
I stand nonchalantly
And watch how, wiping the rains,
The moonlit night is up
And the stars are back.
Too long you have been dark;
Too long you have been
The stonewall of hatred.Enough is enough.
Now what you see in my hands
Are jasmine letters of loveFor you, only for you.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
You came so often
With the hands of the rain-Drona
To wipe out the moon from the sky
And the starlight.
Have you ever put out brightness?
You have pierced the heart
Of a bird who is fond of flying
With arrows, swords and missiles.
Have you ever stopped its mad flight?
Every time my breath has torn apart
Nets of your conspiracy.
Accessing your deadly secrets
I have sung in the centre of your heart.
Checking the flow
I have put on guard
The indestructible peepul of letters.
You have hacked me again and again
I have painted your room with my blood and wound.
Now your sword, supposed to chop me,
Turns into a lotus.
I stand nonchalantly
And watch how, wiping the rains,
The moonlit night is up
And the stars are back.
Too long you have been dark;
Too long you have been
The stonewall of hatred.Enough is enough.
Now what you see in my hands
Are jasmine letters of loveFor you, only for you.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
JUST SHUT UP!
Don’t disturb the poet.
He is meditating on fire.
Just keep quiet.
All right, the earth is flushed with wounds:
Blood, puss, and flies.Men are machine.
What can a poet do about it?
Let him sleep peacefully.
If he wishes
Give him the morning newspaper
In his newly built palace.
After a brief look he would know
That the world is hungry
And immediately he will compose
A great poem on hunger.
Writing on hunger in our time
Is not a small thing.
It is something only a poet can do!
Why are you so worried about the outside?
The city folks kill each other.
The tribal are being evicted from the forest.
The monsoon did not turn up this year.
All the villages are deserted.
What will the poet do
With all these trivial news?
Look at the poet:
He is coming out of meditation
And watching stars from the rooftop.
The sky is full with stars
He starts counting: one, two…
What can a poet do
Except just counting the stars!
You are worried
As to why he is so silent.
Do you expect him to be with you
On the road of blood and fire?
His words should sharpen the voices of your pain.
Once, at least once,His palms should touch
The wound of this earth.
Leave it.
Forgive the poet
For he knows not what does he do.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
Don’t disturb the poet.
He is meditating on fire.
Just keep quiet.
All right, the earth is flushed with wounds:
Blood, puss, and flies.Men are machine.
What can a poet do about it?
Let him sleep peacefully.
If he wishes
Give him the morning newspaper
In his newly built palace.
After a brief look he would know
That the world is hungry
And immediately he will compose
A great poem on hunger.
Writing on hunger in our time
Is not a small thing.
It is something only a poet can do!
Why are you so worried about the outside?
The city folks kill each other.
The tribal are being evicted from the forest.
The monsoon did not turn up this year.
All the villages are deserted.
What will the poet do
With all these trivial news?
Look at the poet:
He is coming out of meditation
And watching stars from the rooftop.
The sky is full with stars
He starts counting: one, two…
What can a poet do
Except just counting the stars!
You are worried
As to why he is so silent.
Do you expect him to be with you
On the road of blood and fire?
His words should sharpen the voices of your pain.
Once, at least once,His palms should touch
The wound of this earth.
Leave it.
Forgive the poet
For he knows not what does he do.
Translated from the Oriya by Rabindra K Swain
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