Give me the scissor that seeks life
hanging from a hanged man
I will cut you freedom from the sky
and open it like my opened heart
PS:Inspired by Korou's scissors in his paitings
Lock of Hair
A poetry collapsed
on my bed
felt off from the cloth hanger
and it sucked away
my blood and sweat
and walked away
leaving me alone
naked and exhausted
it left only a lock of hair
under the blanket
and i found myself
tangled up in the lock
like innocent poems on pages
on my bed
felt off from the cloth hanger
and it sucked away
my blood and sweat
and walked away
leaving me alone
naked and exhausted
it left only a lock of hair
under the blanket
and i found myself
tangled up in the lock
like innocent poems on pages
how does it feel?
How does it feel to be a poet with no words for poetry?
How does it feel sleeping in a sleepless night?
How does it feel to be a son when no one calls you son?
How does it feel to walk free like an orphan?
How does it feel to cry with laughter?
How does it feel to sing when no one lsitens to you?
How does it feel to be naked in winter?
How does it feel to collect the fallen leaves?
How does it feel to lie in the field that opens to the starry night sky?
How does it feel to stay hungry when you become the symbol of hunger?
How does it feel to love someone dead?
How does it feel raising your fist from your grave?
How doest it feel to commit suicide?
Jai Hind!!
When i confuse my homeland with Sikkim
with my slanted eyes
after drinking Sikkim Rum
i clean my ears to listen to the sound of firing guns
and them shouting:
“Jai Hind to the Malom Massacre ”
“Jai Hind to the RIMS Massacre”
“Jai Hind to the Opeation Blue Bird”
“Jai Hind to the Heirangoi Thong incident”
“Jai Hind to the vaginal shot”
“Jai Hind to the Jewel that India wears on her toes”
with my slanted eyes
after drinking Sikkim Rum
i clean my ears to listen to the sound of firing guns
and them shouting:
“Jai Hind to the Malom Massacre ”
“Jai Hind to the RIMS Massacre”
“Jai Hind to the Opeation Blue Bird”
“Jai Hind to the Heirangoi Thong incident”
“Jai Hind to the vaginal shot”
“Jai Hind to the Jewel that India wears on her toes”
wish me my death
Wish me my death
as i wish to be born again
armed with love and tender
in the heart of my bloody land
i dont want to be left alive
with poetry of death
with history of genocide
Wish me my death
Dying too is an act of living
as i wish to be born again
armed with love and tender
in the heart of my bloody land
i dont want to be left alive
with poetry of death
with history of genocide
Wish me my death
Dying too is an act of living
Protest is in our blood (Eidted by Sumitra Thoidingjam)
protest is in our blood
we started it from schools
breaking window panes
burning tyres, shouting slogans
and banners.
we started it from schools
breaking window panes
burning tyres, shouting slogans
and banners.
for me it started with Netaji's murder
in broad day light by commandos
my first commercial picture
came in the front page of Sanathong
wearing a black tie and sky blue shirt
we had learnt how to use onions
when tears gas shells were fired
from Kangla, a sacred place
(a place that opened its gate
when the mothers opened their clothes)
we crawled under the drain
in front of Imphal Talkies
there I saw her in the yellow skirt
and I felt in love
with her within the protest
My heart was like that of a goat
which gobbles up every leaf fed by anyone
I have learnt how to fall on my knees
for love and for my own life.
I have witnessed all form of protests
Chitaranjan, the mothers, 18th June,
none worked out the way people wanted
they all end in local newspapers
with something like Kekru Paats
they remain hidden in hills and vales
like knowledge in books you never get to read
and Sharmila with her hunger for justice -
in nine months a drop of blood turns into a human being
- for nine years incarcerated at JN hospital
when her land is having a carnival
The statue of liberty will crumble into rubble
to her feet.
Gandhi at Mahatma Gandhi avenue will shatter into dust
as she waits for the dusk
Sister the day you succumb will be the day
humanity dies
the day you succumb will be the day
your poetry will rain from the sky
the day you succumb will be the day
we will trade our banners with guns
I ignored you
I ignored you in the crowd
keeping your hands in my warm pocket of my jacket
you bought me on my 29th birthday
with my heart bleeding for the diwali night you stayed away
I ignored you in my poetry "wedding night"
calling you a pyramid
I ignored you cursing with lines
"You lift your skirt
walk like a princess in dirts
your high heel studded with cruelty"
I ignored you crying at nights of your memories
i ignored you when a friend died in a road mishap
i ignored you when the songs rape my mouth
i ignored you with 2000rs phone bills on my table
keeping your hands in my warm pocket of my jacket
you bought me on my 29th birthday
with my heart bleeding for the diwali night you stayed away
I ignored you in my poetry "wedding night"
calling you a pyramid
I ignored you cursing with lines
"You lift your skirt
walk like a princess in dirts
your high heel studded with cruelty"
I ignored you crying at nights of your memories
i ignored you when a friend died in a road mishap
i ignored you when the songs rape my mouth
i ignored you with 2000rs phone bills on my table
A Pahari Selling the Stories of Hills
I have been married to the stories of Hills
as i am a pahari from the hills in the East
Now let me sell my stories to the city dwellers
if you call those Hills a dot in India
Let me sell some of the AK47s
that my mother found while collecting fire woods.
Let me read my poetry of rape
at India Gate and Gateway of India
In the stories of hills
Poetry fails poets, dead ones are the heroes
Curfew walks the streets with its companion silence
folk tales evolve to fuck tales of ministers and revolutionaries
And people like me who love such fables
are high day and night trying to narrate the stories
in some corner of a city with words like rape, death,bullet.
I know this city is loud
but its youth lack stories to get high
they have not sun bathed in the bank of any river
they have not heard of stories of men
who painted the streets with red stars
before they succumbed to their bullet injuries
They have not heard of Yumlembam Ibomcha screaming;
" if grapes are bullets
Shoot me again and again"
they have not heard of extortionists' struggle
for the right to self determination
they have not heard of folk tales
in which the wife gets raped in front of her husband
I must sell my stories now calling it them "sea of puppies"
or " the white Liars" or "One night at Whore centre"
Come Jayanta, lets sell the revolver
you found underneath your pillow in your poetry
Come get the 9mms too that you stole from a corpse
pretending to be a dead poet standing behind the coffin
Come Priya, bring your own death
away from the "men in uniform"
Let the city bleeds too
with "your pen that bleeds blue"
let's march with our bandwagon
let the city's loudness dies
and the city shrinks to a hut in our hills
Come, my love, help me selling my stories
We will marry when we get divorced with our stories of hills.
as i am a pahari from the hills in the East
Now let me sell my stories to the city dwellers
if you call those Hills a dot in India
Let me sell some of the AK47s
that my mother found while collecting fire woods.
Let me read my poetry of rape
at India Gate and Gateway of India
In the stories of hills
Poetry fails poets, dead ones are the heroes
Curfew walks the streets with its companion silence
folk tales evolve to fuck tales of ministers and revolutionaries
And people like me who love such fables
are high day and night trying to narrate the stories
in some corner of a city with words like rape, death,bullet.
I know this city is loud
but its youth lack stories to get high
they have not sun bathed in the bank of any river
they have not heard of stories of men
who painted the streets with red stars
before they succumbed to their bullet injuries
They have not heard of Yumlembam Ibomcha screaming;
" if grapes are bullets
Shoot me again and again"
they have not heard of extortionists' struggle
for the right to self determination
they have not heard of folk tales
in which the wife gets raped in front of her husband
I must sell my stories now calling it them "sea of puppies"
or " the white Liars" or "One night at Whore centre"
Come Jayanta, lets sell the revolver
you found underneath your pillow in your poetry
Come get the 9mms too that you stole from a corpse
pretending to be a dead poet standing behind the coffin
Come Priya, bring your own death
away from the "men in uniform"
Let the city bleeds too
with "your pen that bleeds blue"
let's march with our bandwagon
let the city's loudness dies
and the city shrinks to a hut in our hills
Come, my love, help me selling my stories
We will marry when we get divorced with our stories of hills.
Name Me
looking out the window
i sat leg crossed
on the chair of bedbugs
with pencil in my hand
thinking of everything
like a man
who will be taken
to the gallows pole.
no words, you know,
ever came
like my window
open to a dark world.
Daddy knew
i was trying hard to be a poet
or philosopher
he told me;
"My son! before you find the right words
Change your name to Chattopadhyay"
i sat leg crossed
on the chair of bedbugs
with pencil in my hand
thinking of everything
like a man
who will be taken
to the gallows pole.
no words, you know,
ever came
like my window
open to a dark world.
Daddy knew
i was trying hard to be a poet
or philosopher
he told me;
"My son! before you find the right words
Change your name to Chattopadhyay"
fusksajDSHABNFDAHBFSAHDBFCSDH CFBSDKBV CKX
fuck this world.
i am a piece of shit
i dont ccare anymore
let the sons of bitches rule
let the bastard own me
who am i
i m not lucky to wrote this
let the fucking music rule me
i am the bitch
who dance in the street naked
i am the blood that flow in ur leg
i am d bastard u killed
i am everyone u hate
i am the song u never sing
i am the fuck u had with the whore
i am fucking drung
i an fucking drunk
i am fucking dying
i am fucking cryingh\]
i am fucking killing u
i am fuck9nhg ifjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
i am a piece of shit
i dont ccare anymore
let the sons of bitches rule
let the bastard own me
who am i
i m not lucky to wrote this
let the fucking music rule me
i am the bitch
who dance in the street naked
i am the blood that flow in ur leg
i am d bastard u killed
i am everyone u hate
i am the song u never sing
i am the fuck u had with the whore
i am fucking drung
i an fucking drunk
i am fucking dying
i am fucking cryingh\]
i am fucking killing u
i am fuck9nhg ifjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
Burn
First they burnt Books,
Now they burnt schools,
Next they will burn Children,
and later they will burn you and me
including themselves
forgetting to draw the lines
of protest or resistance
Now they burnt schools,
Next they will burn Children,
and later they will burn you and me
including themselves
forgetting to draw the lines
of protest or resistance
Land of my birth (Translated by Soibam Haripriya from Meiteilon)
The bed my mother bore me
The land of my birth is the very bed my mother reclined
Why should this land be my homeland
Whence they taught me heartlessness
Heartlessly I have kicked my mother
she has fallen cascading from the bed
Now alone I am on the bed blocking my ears
Unbearable as it is
To hear my mother’s lamentation
This land is not my homeland
I am not the one my mother conceived
And why should not I take up arms
If indeed this is the land of my birth
The land of my birth is the very bed my mother reclined
Why should this land be my homeland
Whence they taught me heartlessness
Heartlessly I have kicked my mother
she has fallen cascading from the bed
Now alone I am on the bed blocking my ears
Unbearable as it is
To hear my mother’s lamentation
This land is not my homeland
I am not the one my mother conceived
And why should not I take up arms
If indeed this is the land of my birth
Streets of Slippers
These slippers I wear they belong to the streets
someday someone will ring the iron post with a stone
and we will march in the streets
with our body as a symbol of resistance.
we will be dispersed with casualties
but these slippers will remain to protest
because everything that belongs to me defy them
even I will fall at the place wherever they shoot me
I will bleed all my blood to show I have lived a life
for this street of slippers I am the street poet
someday someone will ring the iron post with a stone
and we will march in the streets
with our body as a symbol of resistance.
we will be dispersed with casualties
but these slippers will remain to protest
because everything that belongs to me defy them
even I will fall at the place wherever they shoot me
I will bleed all my blood to show I have lived a life
for this street of slippers I am the street poet
after tea
after Sipping tea,
we will see again
the sea of mine
where you dip
your heart
like morning cookies
in your cousin's cup of tea
we will see again
the sea of mine
where you dip
your heart
like morning cookies
in your cousin's cup of tea
Delhi
Now they have stopped
scratching their balls
they have stopped
staring at my sisters
Now they molest
Now they rape
He killed her with the knowledge
he has got from dowry killings
Yes that bastard burnt her body
Delhi is the city of rapists
and molesters.
leaving behind the thing called home
we survive here in the name of chinkies
with their hands on my balls
with their eyes staring at the tits
and the books call it "Unity in Diversity"
scratching their balls
they have stopped
staring at my sisters
Now they molest
Now they rape
He killed her with the knowledge
he has got from dowry killings
Yes that bastard burnt her body
Delhi is the city of rapists
and molesters.
leaving behind the thing called home
we survive here in the name of chinkies
with their hands on my balls
with their eyes staring at the tits
and the books call it "Unity in Diversity"
Some Haiku from the night of 9th November
widows by windows,
squatting orphans, searching tear
in the dusty road
in the land of death
a birthday cake in coffin
arrived for the poet
a mouthful of words
i puke, they call it silence
They - those artless lives
dip me in your tea
but free me inside the cup
Let me swim like fish
just the hopeless nights
sings melancholy of souls
which are called lovers
squatting orphans, searching tear
in the dusty road
in the land of death
a birthday cake in coffin
arrived for the poet
a mouthful of words
i puke, they call it silence
They - those artless lives
dip me in your tea
but free me inside the cup
Let me swim like fish
just the hopeless nights
sings melancholy of souls
which are called lovers
Naked Children
Children!
it is now time to play.
the mad peon has rung the bell
together for this year.
Children! come out and play
Lie down in these fields
gaze the sky, you will know
Nature is a big lie.
You have lived in darkness
So light a cigarette
write a satanic verse
fill your wallet with tablets
Manipur is a name of a football
You can bend it the way you want
wear your boots, you don't need books
don't listen to the referee
don't listen to them
Just come out
let's sell Manipur
you have your share
It is no time to sit in desks and benches
So sleep in the streets
sit by the roadside
see where are they driving your home
Come out Children
let's sleepwalk
and bang the doors
you have been hungry enough
to know what is justice
you have been taught enough
to know there is no need of education
to understand this land
Education is for the ones
who were born ignorant about life and death.
but you Children
you grew up among dead bodies
you have hold the banners in these streets
you were born during curfew
you were conceived when the bed was burning
So burn the books, it is all a lie
Children!
let's bathe in the bullet they fire
we are the naked children
of those naked mothers
it is now time to play.
the mad peon has rung the bell
together for this year.
Children! come out and play
Lie down in these fields
gaze the sky, you will know
Nature is a big lie.
You have lived in darkness
So light a cigarette
write a satanic verse
fill your wallet with tablets
Manipur is a name of a football
You can bend it the way you want
wear your boots, you don't need books
don't listen to the referee
don't listen to them
Just come out
let's sell Manipur
you have your share
It is no time to sit in desks and benches
So sleep in the streets
sit by the roadside
see where are they driving your home
Come out Children
let's sleepwalk
and bang the doors
you have been hungry enough
to know what is justice
you have been taught enough
to know there is no need of education
to understand this land
Education is for the ones
who were born ignorant about life and death.
but you Children
you grew up among dead bodies
you have hold the banners in these streets
you were born during curfew
you were conceived when the bed was burning
So burn the books, it is all a lie
Children!
let's bathe in the bullet they fire
we are the naked children
of those naked mothers
My Bible- A poem by Jayanta Oinam
Oh! Man
He is as good as any other poet
Disturb your conscience, was Eliot afar;
When he clear his throat
You will know, he is about to make you clear
Of all the doubts that you think hampers you grow a man
There is no hymn of Amen or Ibudou Pakhangba
But he knows where is Burma and what did our little sister did,
There is No Waste Land, there is no any Byzantyme
For him, Tiddim Road bleeds at Malom
No wonder,
I count myself an educated, civilized and a worthy patriot
With my untamed poems on death and its loose conclusions
That someday I ought to die in her lap
One among her numerous sons!
Oh! Man
There were nights I thought of him, and I got
Dreams stoic and dreaded like a pineapple in Churachandpur
All eyes but blind
And I laughed
What have I done,
In fact, Oinam High School wasn't too far
Few rapes and a lake of sorrow
Let’s laugh a while and celebrate...
Only yesterday, he is back from the killing fields of Manipur
And he brought a book in the name of our lost literature
That sang Kwairamband Bazar and its many crooked by lanes
With each name spelled like a Gandhi and Nehru
And I wished to give each sojourn a definitive verdict
On the Kanglasha and its Sahebs
But, look at him
He brought a book, few pages old and wrought in the mist of Sahitya,
A book seasoned with extict Lamgi Chekla and Pi Thadoi;
Each word I uttered with drunken wisdom,
It proclaimed a bible for Apaiba Thawai!
Help me, I wanted to cry
Help me, I wanted swear
And this Bible, within each imprints,
I seek a vigour, a new morning
Sometimes I thought sacrosanctfor its sake, but what do I do
That’s non-native, in the land of Sanskrit hymns and Bengali script
Oh! He brought this book
That’s bible for me
That speaks of Chaoba, Kamal and Meenaketan;
Tonight, my drunken wisdom says
Embrace it tight
This is my Bible
A Bible surfaced by Akhu!
*************************************************
Thanks Jayanta for such a wonderful poem.
He is as good as any other poet
Disturb your conscience, was Eliot afar;
When he clear his throat
You will know, he is about to make you clear
Of all the doubts that you think hampers you grow a man
There is no hymn of Amen or Ibudou Pakhangba
But he knows where is Burma and what did our little sister did,
There is No Waste Land, there is no any Byzantyme
For him, Tiddim Road bleeds at Malom
No wonder,
I count myself an educated, civilized and a worthy patriot
With my untamed poems on death and its loose conclusions
That someday I ought to die in her lap
One among her numerous sons!
Oh! Man
There were nights I thought of him, and I got
Dreams stoic and dreaded like a pineapple in Churachandpur
All eyes but blind
And I laughed
What have I done,
In fact, Oinam High School wasn't too far
Few rapes and a lake of sorrow
Let’s laugh a while and celebrate...
Only yesterday, he is back from the killing fields of Manipur
And he brought a book in the name of our lost literature
That sang Kwairamband Bazar and its many crooked by lanes
With each name spelled like a Gandhi and Nehru
And I wished to give each sojourn a definitive verdict
On the Kanglasha and its Sahebs
But, look at him
He brought a book, few pages old and wrought in the mist of Sahitya,
A book seasoned with extict Lamgi Chekla and Pi Thadoi;
Each word I uttered with drunken wisdom,
It proclaimed a bible for Apaiba Thawai!
Help me, I wanted to cry
Help me, I wanted swear
And this Bible, within each imprints,
I seek a vigour, a new morning
Sometimes I thought sacrosanctfor its sake, but what do I do
That’s non-native, in the land of Sanskrit hymns and Bengali script
Oh! He brought this book
That’s bible for me
That speaks of Chaoba, Kamal and Meenaketan;
Tonight, my drunken wisdom says
Embrace it tight
This is my Bible
A Bible surfaced by Akhu!
*************************************************
Thanks Jayanta for such a wonderful poem.
Haiku by Akhu
Children in the chains
flying kites in the black sky
standing on their books
singing the song waste
when their eyes sob in the smoke
with shadows of death
flying kites in the black sky
standing on their books
singing the song waste
when their eyes sob in the smoke
with shadows of death
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