In This Mind I Stay, In that Mind I Keep
Jahir Hasan ______________ ash anyone, ash? ___________ that-house, I take a picture then I enter it. its resident beast emerges. i set ablaze the house. in that burning pyre I drop the picture of the house in this way ash is born of thin air all ash therefore is picture the ash-carrier’s heart is heavy ash anybody, ash? ছাই নিবেন গো ছাই ____________ সে-ঘরের ছবি তুলি। তার পর সেই ঘরে ঢুকি। বার হই ঘরের জানোয়ারটা। পোড়াই ঘরেরে। ঘরের আগুনে ছাড়ি ঘরের ছবিটা। ছাই এই ভাবে বাতাসের মধ্যে পয়দায় সব ছাই তাই ছবি ছাই বাহকের মন ভালো নাই। ছা্ই, ছাই নিবেন গো ছাই! *** with regard to language tilling at arshi-nagar ____________________________________ when i lean toward you and when i don’t both are me but who do you love more? the sugarcane farmers don’t kiss after all drowned in sugarcane sap they do not wish to lose themselves. the i before the kiss and the i just after reside so close yet have not the two met, has not one ever witnessed the other’s circus? আরশি নগরের ভাষার চাষ বিষয়ে _____________________ যখন তোমার দিকে কাত হই, যখন হই না- এই দুইজনই আমি কিন্তু কারে বেশি ভালোবাসো তুমি? আখচাষীরা তো চুমা খায় না। আখের রসে অটল হারাইতে চায় না তারা! চুমার আগের আমির সাথে চুমার পরের আমির এত কাছাকাছি বাস তবু দেখা হয় নাই নাকি, দেখে নাই একজনা কভু আরেকজনের সার্কাস? *** wind, where have you disappeared? ____________________________ the magician, from within the ear, shall conjure an elephant, so i await white rice on the plate nowshall fry and eat some brinjal chunks, i await awaiting dubai dough from my son with that, ah, to die after devouring a hilsa huge in the debdaru tree near the graveyard that bulbuli’s self-crafted song i have smeared my face with holding it up so that it does not slough clumsy into the bog let the wind come dancing, by and by on its back shall i slowly let adrift the song… বাতাস কই গেলা ___________ জাদুকর কানের ভিতর থাকি হাতি বার করবেনে তাই বসি আছি সাদা ভাত পাতে বেগুনের চাক ভাজি খাবো, বসি আছি দুবাইয়ে ছেলের টাকার আশায়- দেড় কেজি ওজনের ইলিশ খাইয়েই মরবানে! কবর খানার কাছে দেবদারু গাছে বুলবুলির স্বরচিত গানটা সারা মুখে মাখি কায়দায় থামায়ে রাখছি কাদার উপর যেন বেকায়দায় না পড়ে! বাতাস নাচতে নাচতে আসুক তার পিঠে আস্তে ছেড়ে দিবোনে ! *** what i shall not dream tonight _____________________ unknown station. fog filled. road desolate. the train-driver is old, he can’t even find his own train. it would seem, there, there… at a distance, buried in the fog ambivalent isn’t that a girl weeping to her heart’s content! স্বপ্নে আজ যা দেখব না _______________ অচেনা স্টেশন। কুয়াশায় ভরা। রাস্তা খালি। ট্রেন ড্রাইভার বুড়া, তার নিজের ট্রেনই খুইজে পাইতেছে না! মনে হবে বার বার, হুদাই হুদাই দূরে কুয়াশার গভীরে অনির্ণেয় একটা মেয়ে মন ভরি কাঁদতেছে না ! *** a child’s lament about the grave _________________________ that is a child’s grave he is refusing to accept the system of graves he is trying to come out to play, towards this world he has no idea that a grave stockpiles everything the angel appears, as if enquires: why so restive, why do you regret? here are playing grounds galore try as many fixtures as you wish every sport under the sun nigh that garden of palms never in million years should you ask that ancient greybeard what time it is here! কবর বিষয়ে শিশুর আক্ষেপ __________________ এই কবরটা একটা শিশুর ও মানতে চাচ্ছে না কবরের সিস্টেম ও বার হই আসতেছে খেলবে কইয়ে দুনিয়ার দিকে কবরের ভিতর সব আছে ও জানত না ফেরেশতা আসে, যেন জিগায় তুমি ছটফট কেন, আপশোচ করতেছ কেন? খেলার মাঠ হ্যানে বহুত আছে যাও কত পদে তুমি খেলবা সব খেলাই আছে ঐ খেজুর বাগানের কাছে ঐ বসা বুইড়ারে ভুলেও জিগাইনা এইখানে কটা বাজে! *** grave, rain ________ lightning streak, as if a woman, such tenderness one feels the cloud is the grave still that grave crumples, drizzles! distant district, rain awash, homeless insect, numb shadows flicker within crannies of the comb’s tooth silence visits in a little while rain, rain pours on beneath the rind and bark, unstoppable down to the roots of grass, as if no letter arrives has it been buried by the rain? sorrow besieges my brother’s grave! কবর, বৃষ্টি ______ বিদ্যুৎরেখা, যেন মাইয়ে, ক্যান মায়া লাগে, মেঘেই সমাধি তবুও সমাধি ঝুরো হই ঝরি পড়ে! দূর জেলা, বৃষ্টি কবলিত, গৃহহীন কীট, স্তব্ধ ছায়া নড়ি উঠতেছে চিরুনির দাঁতের ফাঁকের মধ্যে নীরবতা একটু পরেই আসে বৃষ্টি নামি গেছে ছালবাকলের তল দিয়া, ঘাসের শিকড়ে থামে নাই, কোনো চিঠি নাই যেন বৃষ্টিতে দেবে কি গেছে মন মরা বাঁশতলে দাদার কবর ! *** memory of cosmos _______________ in my mind a beam-balance hangs all my cares, all weight I place there a park there a rivulet trees and birds that rivulet as if is an island they do not appear anytime, not always there the milky way seems wobbly i sit in a coffee shop the waiter arrives i drink coffee and think did I ever have anyone? as if there is no yesterday relentless this task in my beam-balance i measure its weight in this mind i stay in that mind i keep মহাকাশের স্মৃতি __________ আমার মনের মধ্যে একখান দাড়িপাল্লা ঝোলে মনের সকল ভার আমি তাতে রাখি সেইখানে পার্ক আছে ছোট নদী আছে গাছ পাখি আছে আবারও সে ছোট নদী আছে যেন এক দ্বীপ সেইটা তারা যন তন হয় না উদয় স্যানে ছায়াপথ নড়বড়ে মনে হয় সেইখানে একটা কফিশপে বসি আমি ওয়েটার আসে আমি কফি খাই আর ভাবি আমার কেউ কি ছিল মোর কোনো গতকাল যেন নাই মোর এই কাম একটানা দাড়িপাল্লা আমি মাপি তার ভার আমি এই মন থাকি যেন ওই মনে রাখি ! *** tidbit poem _________ from deep within my wallet, many a day later money-receipt of quantum foundation, blood red, at the blank obverse someone, in a hurry, has scribbled— 1. goodbye store 2. bath 3. moulana. 4. graveyard 5. milad 6. why was no. 6 blank? is
Goatfooted, Fatcheeked: Goethe’s Venetian Epigrams
Tight little alleyway – no room to squeeze between its walls – a young girl blocks my way, my rambles around Venice knocks me off my feet, the place, the come-on to a stranger’s eye, a wide canal my drifting takes me to. If you had girls like your canals, o Venice, cunts like little alleyways, you’d be the greatest city in the world. * what bothers me is this: the way Bettina gets to be so skillful every limb in her body grows looser & looser till she can stick her own little tongue up her own little cunt a charmer who tastes her own charms will soon lose all interest in men. * Is it so big a mystery what god and man and world are? No! but nobody knows how to solve it so the mystery hangs on. * Lots of things I can stomach. Most of what irks me I take in my stride, as a god might command me. But four things I hate more than poisons & vipers: tobacco smoke, garlic, bedbugs, and Christ. * Doesn’t surprise me that Christ our Lord preferred to live with whores & sinners, seeing I go in for that myself. * I could have made it just as well with boys although my thing has always been with girls. And once I get my satisfaction with a girl I can turn her around & have her as a boy. * Not schwanz meaning “tail” but some fancier word o Priapus me being a poet in German that word grinds me down. In Greek I can call you a phallos a marvelous sound to my ears and in Latin mentula from mens meaning “mind” another good word. But schwanz is something that sticks out from behind & back there isn’t where I find the most pleasure. * Stranger-man, come, let’s drink coffee! She says, and she means ‘let me wank you.’ So much for coffee, my friends, I’ve always hated the stuff. * In my long search for a wife, I kept picking up whores; in the end I Caught you, my dear little whore: now I have found me a wife! * Turn your toes up to heaven, my dear, and don’t worry! We reach up Heavenwards too with our hands, but not so innocently. * Urns and sarcophagi pagans paint into life, dancing fauns, dancing bands of bacchantes, bright lines of them, goatfooted, fatcheeked, squeeze sounds hot & wild through brass horns, percussions & cymbals blare out,: we see & hear on the marble birds beating wings, sweet taste of the fruit on your beaks, no noise to frighten you.off still less to drive Eros away who joins the bright crowds rejoicing, hoisting his torch. So bounty overcomes death & the ashes within in the house made of silence still find pleasure in life. Some day may the tomb of the poet be graced with this scroll he has richly bejewelled with life. *** adminhumanitiesunderground.org
Transformation, Like Salt: The Artistry of Mahesh Verma
Mahesh Verma __________________ A consummate artist is a rare creature. And if such a sense of art is able to amalgamate fever and vehemence with restraint and formal experimentation, then one must take notice. Here are some art-works and poetry of Mahesh Verma. Translating these powerful poems has been a challenge and it will be impossible to do complete justice to the nuances of articulation and tone in such a transformed form. So, the original Hindi versions have been reproduced for those readers who can appreciate the tongue. Mahesh Verma writes from Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh. Contentment Contentment, after dried tear-drops And infinite sorrows, arrived Knocked about woman, abasement she’s suffered If that petty job was not forthcoming Suicide was the only option for the co-star In Part II the star shall narrate his tale First came suspicion Then sorrow, then inmost grief Till then, holding breath In the brambles Was hiding contentment Blessed it is with the last bullet, Coincidence and God’s sanctions So, finally in this manner did arrive contentment As if lying low for felicity: an infiltrator From the Rear End To enter words from the rear end Through the back-door From astern The murderer has been nabbed The suicide, over The marriage mantras the priest has begun chanting Moments before couples disjoin from each other for the last time A car, blazing, plummets down the gorge Conspiracy and tear-laden whispers: on pages within The young man has left his home, fugitive The reason for the ringing bullets in the last instance Shall be this table-cloth The maid hides her love-letter, the old man his sins His doping-habits the young man hides The rich hides his sobs The parched platform, the garden-gate The telephone kiosk or any other place Concurrence shall bark him back and in Time’s gossamer a subtle knot tie From here, time’s lurkings plentiful Bright morning, bleary dusk, all other time Words must have spawned there. Desire-Deceit You sport with despondency And I, turn dim Within countless supernova You play with sound And wrenching, the sky flings me away The way you sport with directions With dimensions One evening you murmured in voice-triplet Harmonize I could not with that strain Rolled into the restlessness of the santoor-player My voice told me: adieu With three strains of stammer I have made alliances Until one night, when you kept lobbing kisses over my door of quiet And to my cell-phone, you said: “Desire-deceit.” Transformation Salt, in your body and Grittiness, rubbing my face I was downing fire Slow and even, to transform And turn into a new thing I have seen from close quarters The turning into each other Of a domestic animal An enemy And a galled hand-saw When the fire had guzzled me down And the blazes, once again turning as is At peace and in moderate amber In the sedate sea, salt gets transformed Body’s sweat has made a gentle lover enraptured Within its dank, acidic odour Granular spaces did not become soil Nor did shrubs turn into walls Bundling up liquid and humming Desires within, for a long time They remained as they were Orifice Through this orifice does time enter into my room At night through this walkway descends darkness If ever the moon craves to see its own visage On the floor, on her own In the spherical mirror can she witness it Once, lying down, sliding slow I’d taken her straight into my heart Now I don’t recall clearly Was it moonshine, sunbeam, what was it? Believe you me sir I had altered the meaning of things The Messenger That time when message unfabricated You would deliver verbatim Now, all ten of the messengers As merchants of untruth disclosed Such myriad webs These bastards have weaved between us That only a real sword can now cleave them How gripping it would be to mark his face When, by revealing the sword that had taken The lives of nine messengers The tenth will be asked to acquiesce One more time shall he cook an untruth And for a few more moments Shall salvage his life. God of the Trees Roused by your enormous wings Wander in the empyrean heart At dusk, come back To wail, standing in the dark To noise/be impassive/tarry Water In the chilliest of kisses Water you have petrified! On the sprouting thorns Within your larynx Play that jal-tarang Even if spring Sing the badal raag *** सुखान्त सुखान्त सूखे हुए आंसुओं और अनगिन दुःख के बाद आया ठोकरें खाती रही स्त्री, उसने अपमान सहे यह छोटी नौकरी न लग जाती तो आत्महत्या करने ही वाला था सहनायक नायक भाग दो में अपनी कथा कहेगा. पहले संदेह आया फिर दुःख फिर गहरा शोक आया तब तक दम साधे झाड़ियों में छुपा रहा सुखान्त उसे अंतिम गोली, संयोग और ईश्वर की मदद हासिल है तो अंत में ऐसे आया सुखान्त आने की ताक में था जैसे : घुसपैठिया अंत की ओर से कथा में पीछे से प्रवेश करना. पिछले दरवाजे से. अंत की ओर से. हत्यारा पकड़ा जा चुका. हो चुकी आत्महत्या. पुरोहित शुरू कर चुके विवाह के मन्त्र. प्रेमीगण के अंतिम रूप से बिछुड़ने से ठीक पहले एक कार जलती गिर रही है खाई में षड्यंत्रों और आंसुओं में भीगी फुसफुसाहटें : भीतर के पृष्ठों पर. घर छोड़कर निकल गया है नौजवान, अंत में चलने वाली गोली का कारण यही मेजपोश बनेगा नौकरानी अपना प्रेमपत्र छुपाती है, बूढ़ा अपने पाप. नौजवान नशे की आदतें छुपाते हैं धनी आदमी अपने आँसू छुपाता है. नीरस प्लेटफॉर्म, बगीचे के द्वार, टेलीफोन की दूकान या कहीं भी संयोग उन्हें हांककर लायेगा और समय के धागे पर एक गाँठ लगा देगा. यहाँ से ढेर सारी समय संभावनाएं दिखाई देती हैं उजली सुबह,
Fists That Turn Like Keys
Aishwarya Iyer __________________ [1] Splitting Seed How often must we arise from this seed Yellow, nutted, moon-spent, tree-withered, The seed splits and leaves climb out, thus flow tears, Time spreads like disease, the swell of mood hangs Over split seed— Hands, legs, tongue, hair—bodies roam about in space The city is abluster, automobiles now have faces, The city where eyes wander, where stones are broken, Where language has no home: ‘Drive Slow’, ‘Kanti Sweets’, ‘Herculean Builders’, ‘Pasta Street’; the city where the hand betrays the leg, the mouth betrays the eye, where the ground breaks like seed, but nothing climbs out, thus flow tears— Between us great distances hang in the smallest of words: ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘of course’; sometimes dictionaries are the end of meaning; the garbage dump got cleared; we ache to know wherefrom we speak; how often must we arise from this seed? Afternoon flows out of the sun’s tongue: the day is some kind of speech. *** [2] Iggalur, or Far from the City The fields are woven from hands, air, water and sun, The eyes of stalks gleam in the afternoon The trunks of trees offer vertical hold Far from the city, from the sleep of human beings, Time goes into the body of plants So full is this passage that night too is left undreamt Time is eaten—and plants grow. *** [3] After Paul Celan Keep your words married to their sense, the sense married to absence. Don’t lead them too far astray, hollowed, searching for their point of emergence. But if they search for their shadows, let them, for shadows are what bind them to breath. A word is a stone without its breath. *** [4] Meeting A meeting like one where the sky and earth meet is illusory, we all know The sky and earth walk together in their meeting Their meeting being a not-meeting; Our bodies are held in curtains: The azaan, the temple bells, the chants next door leave a gold rush that is too bright on them. Our bodies, when they meet, must walk together The legs with legs Hands with hands My language cupped in yours— That gold dust torn off must envelop us in a far circle Minting fresh moments like chants. No, our bodies shall not chime, they shall not sing They shall not announce any god Like the blush of sky and earth in embrace at sunset Our bodies will shiver warm at the passing of time Mark day and night, become sun and moon. They shall be held in curtains too. *** [5] Make Time Make time Make time from the joyous tinny screams of children Bathing in afternoon sun Sew time from the leaves holding out to the afternoon Belting the terraces of low houses Rising like invisible ears The crow looks askance. The truth is here. Make space for the shearing of time The glass-pulp of action froths to the top The dove that floated in its sky will be lost *** [6] Scene from a First-floor Window Over the treetops comes a surge that swallows the eyesight of dreamers The construction workers have wet their feet in ditch water; one lights a cigarette and launches into a tale for the other They sit on a slab and wait for the afternoon darkness to bleed; the koel has come visiting, but you almost forget to hear her, the green of the trees runs into her voice; The rattle of implements has a sharper sting; clotheslines become forlorn and balconies begin to be besieged; The earth had been asking her due with iron stillness Now way’s made to cure her of her bitter agony. *** [7] We are in flames… We are in flames Very often the evening spars And the night is a cauldron for little fires The splinters come from everywhere Sparks dripping about the construction worker The crackling voices of playing children The television makes other fires in homes; You and I are hands aclap Your words are fists that turn like keys The locks are between us. *** [8] Name And that blesséd word with no meaning—who will utter it? —Agha Shahid Ali stars vanishing into nothingness stop and turn back to participate in the utterance of your name that becomes the element of time your name breaks into numerous syllables and with it brings suffering to sound the stars race against the shatter, against time, holding your name together your name engulfs the splicing of days the morning, a dewdrop from your name the night, a pod for your name your name bristles under the earth leaving the ground groundless far from the concert of stars fall crystals of duration hours and days spent in your name *** [9] Flesh Which kind of flesh have you found pierced in the encounter? You and I, suppurating leaves falling from a naked tree Cut off, with blood sap We were never joined, and now finding our midribs in line Our flesh disappears, the green grows distant We have grown eyes __________________ adminhumanitiesunderground.org