4am in the morning
He felt off from my dirty old book shelf
he stood up dusting off his bald head
and looked at me
like i was one of his half written poem
and said "don't follow me
searching for the silver oak tree
i have chopped it down
wearing my wife's gown
calling myself Shrimati Tomcha Babu
i hid myself from police babus
but never i could hide myself from poetry
the Chilean poet claimed poetry came after him
but i am poetry since 1969
soaking my legs in Kongba river
hanging under the bridge for my beloved
i was the one who plucked mangoes from a branch named "China"
and ate them at a branch named "Africa"
don't follow me
walk ahead
I have to meet George Bush at Lilong
don't even follow my poetry
they hardly reach Shillong
I ride a Humber Bicycle
but never learnt to slow down
to talk to the man in bullock cart
or never to talk to a peasant
when my wife demands me a new blouse
in my house of poetry
in the beginning of poetry full of month
and you know?
I stitch a blouse for her with my poetry
don't follow me
they have translated my poems already
but no one can translate me
who can translate me?
not you not any of you in this valley
how will you translate
the wail of a hungry market dog
how the fuck will you interpret
a dog urinating on my bald head
how? how on earth?
don't follow me my boy
I was the "hayingkhongyambi"
that questioned the beliefs of our drunken Vaishnavites
i was that mouthful of rice in Lukhak-Kom
that called himself a king of this land
i was the one who sold kids
in the carnival of death and corpses
with parrots eating the flesh of young boys
don't follow me
look at them learn to live a poetryless life
go find a good wife
poetry can't challenge your enemy
look at me dying here
look at my books lying there
but i have no fear for this land
but only the one with fear survives here
with their pockets full of lies
lovers in winter
lovers in winter
like left over plate of rice
to a poor family
from a rich family
eating up the flesh
like a fresh rose
in the morning sun
frying themselves in bed
rolling and tossing
creating a moist universe
fills with cries in verse
lovers in winter
they dont feel cold
they don't hold to their age
they are newly born
stoned with lust
just as stupid as clown in circus
they whisper in silent night
they cry watching Popeye
they serve dinner with waist down naked
they just smile and say thousand words
Lovers in winter
they are the singers
they polish their fingers
for the dark night
their legs kick in air
they pant in stair
with silent giggles
in the rhythm Christmas jingles
like left over plate of rice
to a poor family
from a rich family
eating up the flesh
like a fresh rose
in the morning sun
frying themselves in bed
rolling and tossing
creating a moist universe
fills with cries in verse
lovers in winter
they dont feel cold
they don't hold to their age
they are newly born
stoned with lust
just as stupid as clown in circus
they whisper in silent night
they cry watching Popeye
they serve dinner with waist down naked
they just smile and say thousand words
Lovers in winter
they are the singers
they polish their fingers
for the dark night
their legs kick in air
they pant in stair
with silent giggles
in the rhythm Christmas jingles
Contessa
Driving the Contessa
i peeled the dusty road
with my sister tired and bored
looking for a peg of life
in the foreign evening
of Christmas stars
we thought it was a dry day
but with sweat and blood
the street was all wet
and a sad man
with blood dripping from his nose
looked away blindly
as Santa Claus got stuck
in traffic jam for the beggar boys
so the socks they filled with coins
with thumbs up
and they sang
"Such a life
of such day
how do you find my friend
how does it feel to be in the street?"
i peeled the dusty road
with my sister tired and bored
looking for a peg of life
in the foreign evening
of Christmas stars
we thought it was a dry day
but with sweat and blood
the street was all wet
and a sad man
with blood dripping from his nose
looked away blindly
as Santa Claus got stuck
in traffic jam for the beggar boys
so the socks they filled with coins
with thumbs up
and they sang
"Such a life
of such day
how do you find my friend
how does it feel to be in the street?"
stupidity
where is me
tell me
you want to play
hide and seek.
am i in your city
or in my valley
Reading Shelly
i give up poetry
Reading pound
i lose a pound
do i sound
like a stupid queen in crown
or a proud fowl
which escapes a soup of bowl
Oh i am stupid
as cupid
dont think it is a poem
i will hit your loin
tell me
you want to play
hide and seek.
am i in your city
or in my valley
Reading Shelly
i give up poetry
Reading pound
i lose a pound
do i sound
like a stupid queen in crown
or a proud fowl
which escapes a soup of bowl
Oh i am stupid
as cupid
dont think it is a poem
i will hit your loin
A post card to my father
I am your travelling-son, father,
Since you left me
In the crowded railway station of Guwahati
i started my journey by Brahmaputra Mail
with a physicist who loves Graham Greene
who taught me life is short to do everything
and i learnt the hardest part is to be a traveller like me
and the easiest thing is to write poetry
using names like Neruda, Guevara and Mayakovsky
Father, in my journey
I have missed home
but i believed there is so much in love
and the city i travelled
Now i wish to recycle this city in my desktop
as it threw me out on 15th December, 2009
leaving me stranded in a crossroad
with 1000kilograms of luggage
that i gathered in my ten years of travelling.
where shall i go now with all these
with no friends and notepads
where i can fit them as poetry
like stars studded in a pixel of sky
Must i end here?
Shall i burn myself out at home?
Don't tell me father "Go tell it on the mountain"?
I imagine you selling transistors to old men
It is Christmas time, you must be selling stereo tape too
to the brothers from hills who wear leather pants and hats
like some Texas cowboy in old Hollywood movies
But the smile was gone from your face
the grey beard replaced it
as you die fighting with them for every demand letter
they brought to your table.
I curse myself for loving home sometime
as i know they too prove that they love the land
with names like Kangleipak, Republic front and borrowing
all the good phrase of great history of revolutions.
I apologise father
I am your travelling son
who seeks nothing in life
other than living a day with a rucksak
filled few lousy algebraic calculations
and few poems
dying to be on some white page of a capitalist
Father,
I am sending you this post card
as Christmas arrives everywhere with snow,
i know you don't care of Christmas
but you will smell it in the rice and potatoes you eat
as it passed through highway 39
or you listen to the bell "Nagaland for christ"
Give my kisses to mother.
Since you left me
In the crowded railway station of Guwahati
i started my journey by Brahmaputra Mail
with a physicist who loves Graham Greene
who taught me life is short to do everything
and i learnt the hardest part is to be a traveller like me
and the easiest thing is to write poetry
using names like Neruda, Guevara and Mayakovsky
Father, in my journey
I have missed home
but i believed there is so much in love
and the city i travelled
Now i wish to recycle this city in my desktop
as it threw me out on 15th December, 2009
leaving me stranded in a crossroad
with 1000kilograms of luggage
that i gathered in my ten years of travelling.
where shall i go now with all these
with no friends and notepads
where i can fit them as poetry
like stars studded in a pixel of sky
Must i end here?
Shall i burn myself out at home?
Don't tell me father "Go tell it on the mountain"?
I imagine you selling transistors to old men
It is Christmas time, you must be selling stereo tape too
to the brothers from hills who wear leather pants and hats
like some Texas cowboy in old Hollywood movies
But the smile was gone from your face
the grey beard replaced it
as you die fighting with them for every demand letter
they brought to your table.
I curse myself for loving home sometime
as i know they too prove that they love the land
with names like Kangleipak, Republic front and borrowing
all the good phrase of great history of revolutions.
I apologise father
I am your travelling son
who seeks nothing in life
other than living a day with a rucksak
filled few lousy algebraic calculations
and few poems
dying to be on some white page of a capitalist
Father,
I am sending you this post card
as Christmas arrives everywhere with snow,
i know you don't care of Christmas
but you will smell it in the rice and potatoes you eat
as it passed through highway 39
or you listen to the bell "Nagaland for christ"
Give my kisses to mother.
Hip Hop Poem
i was inside the store
listening to a black song
about the world going wrong
smoking pot through a bong
they call it submarine
it reached my spleen
I break danced with my head in spin
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
Mama cries watching soap opera
the poets die for words of Neruda
Flamboyant chick, she wants America
The newspapers, all for Telangana
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
If you were born Indian
drowning in Sambar or frying with benggan
Ten days of fast fucked the nation
But nine years of fast in the hill
dies away like effect of a crocine pill
so I say fuck the nation
they have no solution
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
listening to a black song
about the world going wrong
smoking pot through a bong
they call it submarine
it reached my spleen
I break danced with my head in spin
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
Mama cries watching soap opera
the poets die for words of Neruda
Flamboyant chick, she wants America
The newspapers, all for Telangana
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
If you were born Indian
drowning in Sambar or frying with benggan
Ten days of fast fucked the nation
But nine years of fast in the hill
dies away like effect of a crocine pill
so I say fuck the nation
they have no solution
while the radio sang I am the king
yet in this world where do i fit in
I dont know i don' know
To Peace
Peace blooms good in books
Peace looks good when it means White dove
But I have also seen a friend (Kanano Khangbro)
who flushed it down in some western commode
may be too impatient
like the toothbrush which couldn't wait
to see the teeth shining for a cheap ad
and the toothbrush too was with peace.
Yoko and Lennon left the bed
leaving peace as wrinkles on the bedsheet
with pillow stained with lennon's imagination
O Peace!
Stop teasing me
i don't long for you
Peace looks good when it means White dove
But I have also seen a friend (Kanano Khangbro)
who flushed it down in some western commode
may be too impatient
like the toothbrush which couldn't wait
to see the teeth shining for a cheap ad
and the toothbrush too was with peace.
Yoko and Lennon left the bed
leaving peace as wrinkles on the bedsheet
with pillow stained with lennon's imagination
O Peace!
Stop teasing me
i don't long for you
Call me a Hero
If i die while writing a poem
dont call me a poetry maniac
call me a Hero :)
as i search for home in words
like bomb and tomb
dont call me a poetry maniac
call me a Hero :)
as i search for home in words
like bomb and tomb
Mangjijao Hoten-2
Lately Ta Mangijao discovered that his only son
Danny Jao is also very good in organising events
He organised a birthday event at Kilokri Subji Mandi
in which the birthday boy cut a cabbage as the night was dark
and lost the cake in midnight traffic jam of delhi
he can't bear any kind of viruses
he exterminate viruses and name them after people he know
like "Ringo, Raju, Sumitra"
Proud Ta Mangijao posted his sons pictures on the walls of his hoten
in different pose including Krishna Pose
which often looks like something heavy is inside him.
After a heavy meal of Hangam chamthong and hawaijar metpa
Ringo day dreamt, sitting at the bench of Hoten
smoking a Mantu Bidi with a tooth peak in his mouth
he finds his love in Loktak, clad in phanek with a long in her hand
and singing Pamuba laone, Software na kanaroi
lamdamse hardware olle India gi
her visits to Mangjjao hoten made Sumitra quite an Intellect
so she teaches "Romeo's recipe of Oak Chagempomba"
instead of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
And the young radical Muslim students are liking it
as she never used word "Swor"
Wondering the "non linear dynamics" of Ta Mangijao hoten
Umeshkanta came like winter crab near Imphal Turel
with his crazy leg he learnt from John Travolta of Pulp Fiction
with Uma Thurman who was a wfie of a Black Gangster
who got sodomised by a Gay Police.
And While the hoten was enjoying the news of Ringo jao being eloped
leaving his Yamaha peirced an old Banyan Tree
Sonyboy complained of the stinking toilet as he followed Romeo Jao
after they had "Wathi Chagempomba"
with the good old club secretary who wished Ene Purnimashi while she was sitting
near a khongban :)
So tamo Basanta Jao left a western commode for Sonyboy
saying
"My boy! Dont make yourself heavy
But make mother earth heavy
there are aliens around to take off mother earth like a space ship"
da Balan jao came late at night
with a Mayep on his shoulder playing a song called "Fireflies"
to forget the blues of his eloped daughters
Ta Vimol came like gansgter of 80's bollywood with bald head
asking Da Balan Jao "who took away the girl?"
They belived Akhu took the girl away..but no
the truth is Akhu came his pant rolled down and shirt rolled up
looking for a dog to lick away his yongchak flavour ass
as Tamo Basanta Jao advised in his uchina like ears
And Da ringo Jao came "Bingo" again
and screened his movie "Into the wild"
like the filmaker in Mr. Bean's Holiday
all the critics agreed the movie was good
but the film lacked romance,love and tender
and too much of Bidi and drinks
Ta Basanta Jao distributed Sand clock to Pakhang macha
reminding them that they belong to Kangleipak to
marry young, who knows a bullet is on your way?
But the mesage leaked way
thru zipped Pakora in Gmail
and reached ta Duran Jao
So suddenly he dressed up himself as Groom
and posed in mirror and the mirror shattered into pieces
and the whole mumbai woke up thinking of another 26/11
but he said to the world
"Now i am going to be married soon
Dwipen! come! Hold the Chaisen!
Ringojao, Kadai eigi Satin!
Ta Balan Jao! Spare me from E-RANG
Now i myself need some e-rang"
While TaDuran Jao was playing drum in his own Marriage
Supriya popped up here and there like a feet in the rhythm of thabal drum
sometime in Dubai during Ramdan
sometime in Banglore wearing the biggest chapal on earth
sometime in delhi to sing "Let it be"
while Umeshkanta Jao is trying to snatch away the MIC for his Lan Pamde
When Ringo ended being a tired Motor Cycle Dairy Hero
DA KK jao came with a yellow Lambetta
and they both rode off for the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
and single Dwipen jao started looking around for his right mate
but he found no one except the same old Chafu of Uti of Ta Mangijoao
And suddenly everyone in Mangijao Hoten heard the news
"Someone eloped, someone eloped, Nupi chelle Nupi cHelle"
Ta Mangijao spread his mat(fak)
and everyone sits with a glass of black tea in their hands
and start the usual the discussion on everything under the sun
But Ta Duran Jao is missing ....
and suddenly TaMangijao's radio bursts:
"Leikai gi echal apamba yam yaowee
Mityeng nayeng yamna chumdaba yaowee"
Danny Jao is also very good in organising events
He organised a birthday event at Kilokri Subji Mandi
in which the birthday boy cut a cabbage as the night was dark
and lost the cake in midnight traffic jam of delhi
he can't bear any kind of viruses
he exterminate viruses and name them after people he know
like "Ringo, Raju, Sumitra"
Proud Ta Mangijao posted his sons pictures on the walls of his hoten
in different pose including Krishna Pose
which often looks like something heavy is inside him.
After a heavy meal of Hangam chamthong and hawaijar metpa
Ringo day dreamt, sitting at the bench of Hoten
smoking a Mantu Bidi with a tooth peak in his mouth
he finds his love in Loktak, clad in phanek with a long in her hand
and singing Pamuba laone, Software na kanaroi
lamdamse hardware olle India gi
her visits to Mangjjao hoten made Sumitra quite an Intellect
so she teaches "Romeo's recipe of Oak Chagempomba"
instead of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
And the young radical Muslim students are liking it
as she never used word "Swor"
Wondering the "non linear dynamics" of Ta Mangijao hoten
Umeshkanta came like winter crab near Imphal Turel
with his crazy leg he learnt from John Travolta of Pulp Fiction
with Uma Thurman who was a wfie of a Black Gangster
who got sodomised by a Gay Police.
And While the hoten was enjoying the news of Ringo jao being eloped
leaving his Yamaha peirced an old Banyan Tree
Sonyboy complained of the stinking toilet as he followed Romeo Jao
after they had "Wathi Chagempomba"
with the good old club secretary who wished Ene Purnimashi while she was sitting
near a khongban :)
So tamo Basanta Jao left a western commode for Sonyboy
saying
"My boy! Dont make yourself heavy
But make mother earth heavy
there are aliens around to take off mother earth like a space ship"
da Balan jao came late at night
with a Mayep on his shoulder playing a song called "Fireflies"
to forget the blues of his eloped daughters
Ta Vimol came like gansgter of 80's bollywood with bald head
asking Da Balan Jao "who took away the girl?"
They belived Akhu took the girl away..but no
the truth is Akhu came his pant rolled down and shirt rolled up
looking for a dog to lick away his yongchak flavour ass
as Tamo Basanta Jao advised in his uchina like ears
And Da ringo Jao came "Bingo" again
and screened his movie "Into the wild"
like the filmaker in Mr. Bean's Holiday
all the critics agreed the movie was good
but the film lacked romance,love and tender
and too much of Bidi and drinks
Ta Basanta Jao distributed Sand clock to Pakhang macha
reminding them that they belong to Kangleipak to
marry young, who knows a bullet is on your way?
But the mesage leaked way
thru zipped Pakora in Gmail
and reached ta Duran Jao
So suddenly he dressed up himself as Groom
and posed in mirror and the mirror shattered into pieces
and the whole mumbai woke up thinking of another 26/11
but he said to the world
"Now i am going to be married soon
Dwipen! come! Hold the Chaisen!
Ringojao, Kadai eigi Satin!
Ta Balan Jao! Spare me from E-RANG
Now i myself need some e-rang"
While TaDuran Jao was playing drum in his own Marriage
Supriya popped up here and there like a feet in the rhythm of thabal drum
sometime in Dubai during Ramdan
sometime in Banglore wearing the biggest chapal on earth
sometime in delhi to sing "Let it be"
while Umeshkanta Jao is trying to snatch away the MIC for his Lan Pamde
When Ringo ended being a tired Motor Cycle Dairy Hero
DA KK jao came with a yellow Lambetta
and they both rode off for the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
and single Dwipen jao started looking around for his right mate
but he found no one except the same old Chafu of Uti of Ta Mangijoao
And suddenly everyone in Mangijao Hoten heard the news
"Someone eloped, someone eloped, Nupi chelle Nupi cHelle"
Ta Mangijao spread his mat(fak)
and everyone sits with a glass of black tea in their hands
and start the usual the discussion on everything under the sun
But Ta Duran Jao is missing ....
and suddenly TaMangijao's radio bursts:
"Leikai gi echal apamba yam yaowee
Mityeng nayeng yamna chumdaba yaowee"
Maisnam Mangijao Hoten
there was a confusion between Maisnam and Denzongpa
untill Da Danny opened Mangijao Hoten
standing inside the lee shoes of his daddy Mangijao
And so a Broken hearted Da Ringo came down
from the hills of Ukhrul with a cigerrete in his hand
like a hungry useless meitei lion singing Zionism by his black shirt
Tamo Basanta brought Morning to Mangijoa hoten
with his nursery rhyme "Taibi Taibi Yes Praja"
while the hills were singing "Hallelujah"
Sometimes he came with Toningkok
wearing neck tie and sold it to Tamo Vimol and Ta Duran
Ta Duran arrived in evening sitting on a banana leaf
like he was having a magic carpet ride with his eyes
gazing at Ta Mangijao's Bora thru his thick glasses
he pleased the girls in the hoten singing "Love me two times baby"
And Da KK popped out of an old Krishna calender of Hero Cycle
which was posted since class of 1999 next to Ta Mangijao's Funga
when the torn krishna smelled the chicken iromba of Romeo, the moreh hero
Romeo not only was a great cook
he even sold away pumpkins from thong nambonbi
saying they are all from Moreh
He wears a garland of sunflowers and serve KFC to Mangijao hoten
And Raju the overdosed poet with haiku
sits next to Mangijao's Meiphu
smoking bidi, blowing meikhu
waiting for the freid Waikhu
And earlier the girls were too shy to smoke
eventually they became Nisha Bandh
with their mouth stink with Vodka and Rum
while supriya sold away Hawaijar in dates
while Babina became a poet who lost her gender
between Jao and Thourani
And Dwipen left everyone for his spiritual life
that he longs for since he became single
and breakfasted with Old Monk in Pune
But he came home wearing Da Ringo's face "Yumai"
Yes his face has become spiritual
and as soon as he came back he jumped into a chafu of TaMangijao's Uti
he wishes to grow his tummy like Himalaya
"it is eternity"
untill Da Danny opened Mangijao Hoten
standing inside the lee shoes of his daddy Mangijao
And so a Broken hearted Da Ringo came down
from the hills of Ukhrul with a cigerrete in his hand
like a hungry useless meitei lion singing Zionism by his black shirt
Tamo Basanta brought Morning to Mangijoa hoten
with his nursery rhyme "Taibi Taibi Yes Praja"
while the hills were singing "Hallelujah"
Sometimes he came with Toningkok
wearing neck tie and sold it to Tamo Vimol and Ta Duran
Ta Duran arrived in evening sitting on a banana leaf
like he was having a magic carpet ride with his eyes
gazing at Ta Mangijao's Bora thru his thick glasses
he pleased the girls in the hoten singing "Love me two times baby"
And Da KK popped out of an old Krishna calender of Hero Cycle
which was posted since class of 1999 next to Ta Mangijao's Funga
when the torn krishna smelled the chicken iromba of Romeo, the moreh hero
Romeo not only was a great cook
he even sold away pumpkins from thong nambonbi
saying they are all from Moreh
He wears a garland of sunflowers and serve KFC to Mangijao hoten
And Raju the overdosed poet with haiku
sits next to Mangijao's Meiphu
smoking bidi, blowing meikhu
waiting for the freid Waikhu
And earlier the girls were too shy to smoke
eventually they became Nisha Bandh
with their mouth stink with Vodka and Rum
while supriya sold away Hawaijar in dates
while Babina became a poet who lost her gender
between Jao and Thourani
And Dwipen left everyone for his spiritual life
that he longs for since he became single
and breakfasted with Old Monk in Pune
But he came home wearing Da Ringo's face "Yumai"
Yes his face has become spiritual
and as soon as he came back he jumped into a chafu of TaMangijao's Uti
he wishes to grow his tummy like Himalaya
"it is eternity"
Winter Time
it is winter time
with market full of peas
it is winter time
with days full of sleep
give me peace
no the scars from drunken night
November left me
with my forehead swollen
December arrived
with my weak punch bleeding
i am living
with my hair falling like autumn leaves
Mama it is winter time
dont call me from home
i dont want to hear the news
dont wake me up mama
i only want to wake up clean
leaving my scars on my Moreh blanket
it is winter time
and i dont want to hear a chime
of the church bell
that rob the sincerity of many lives in hills
it is winter time
i dont want to write a poem of hate
it is winter time
love falls from the sky
i pick it
and get lost in translation
and i say "Sarang Ngiyo"
as she asks me to pay back
the six years of love and fight
with my stupidity,
the six years in which
she adoringly said
quoting Ondatjee
"Seeing you
i want no other life"
when it is winter and we die
ourselves for pork with bamboo shoot
it is winter time
again a weekend arrives
flavoured with smoke and scent of rum
and we burn out like fireflies in dawn
with market full of peas
it is winter time
with days full of sleep
give me peace
no the scars from drunken night
November left me
with my forehead swollen
December arrived
with my weak punch bleeding
i am living
with my hair falling like autumn leaves
Mama it is winter time
dont call me from home
i dont want to hear the news
dont wake me up mama
i only want to wake up clean
leaving my scars on my Moreh blanket
it is winter time
and i dont want to hear a chime
of the church bell
that rob the sincerity of many lives in hills
it is winter time
i dont want to write a poem of hate
it is winter time
love falls from the sky
i pick it
and get lost in translation
and i say "Sarang Ngiyo"
as she asks me to pay back
the six years of love and fight
with my stupidity,
the six years in which
she adoringly said
quoting Ondatjee
"Seeing you
i want no other life"
when it is winter and we die
ourselves for pork with bamboo shoot
it is winter time
again a weekend arrives
flavoured with smoke and scent of rum
and we burn out like fireflies in dawn
the great cook
The great cook has arrived in town
with a recipe book wearing a white gown
So no animals walk the streets
no cows, no buffaloes, no humans
He has brought the biggest tandoor from Punjab
and the spices from south India
he will prepare chapati, red gulab jamun
and all sort of qormas and human tandoori
hey people, hide!
with a recipe book wearing a white gown
So no animals walk the streets
no cows, no buffaloes, no humans
He has brought the biggest tandoor from Punjab
and the spices from south India
he will prepare chapati, red gulab jamun
and all sort of qormas and human tandoori
hey people, hide!
ode to toothbrush
Oh my toothbrush
you are all torn
looking like a bramble bush
but u never protest a morning
this mouth is as sinful as they are
as it is the weapon for poor
you dont know
what have i eaten at night
what have these teeth chewed in the dawn
even they hit me
this mouth never bleeds
but today it is bleeding
i know what would the doctors say
they would say my 'gum is weak
use a softer costlier brush'
oh if i throw you away
the ragpcikers will pick you
and the cobblers will use you
to polish the leather boots
I shall never throw you away
I shall love you
even if my lover departs in such cruel winter
I shall love you
we have survived together
this poverty, this history and this poetry
Momo poem inside INA Subway
suddenly i missed home
and my tongue missed the taste
so i walked down the subway
and had a plate of momos,
eight pieces of momo,
dipped well in the chilli paste
it gave me a certain feeling of home
but not the full one
that i felt the moment i stepped down from Bluehills
So i walked further
and saw on the wall
"Give me blood
I will give you freedom"
and i was satisfied
when i changed the word freedom into blood
and it said
"Give me freedom
I will give you blood, your blood"
and my tongue missed the taste
so i walked down the subway
and had a plate of momos,
eight pieces of momo,
dipped well in the chilli paste
it gave me a certain feeling of home
but not the full one
that i felt the moment i stepped down from Bluehills
So i walked further
and saw on the wall
"Give me blood
I will give you freedom"
and i was satisfied
when i changed the word freedom into blood
and it said
"Give me freedom
I will give you blood, your blood"
Poem for Romeo Loitongbam
A winter night in delhi
swallowed two small gold flake cigarettes
while it brought no solution
for our lives in the middle of a crossroad.
We were caught by the night
with the philosophy of death and life.
many walked away siding us
many lived too worrying about routine insanity of life
about marriage, jobs and future
And here we were making stories
of walking all over the country
leaving foot prints in every nation with peace
Yes we are mad and they are sad to know it
but we will live our life the way we want
even with out a proper lab where you can study
Zinc Oxide or Romeo and Juliets :)
swallowed two small gold flake cigarettes
while it brought no solution
for our lives in the middle of a crossroad.
We were caught by the night
with the philosophy of death and life.
many walked away siding us
many lived too worrying about routine insanity of life
about marriage, jobs and future
And here we were making stories
of walking all over the country
leaving foot prints in every nation with peace
Yes we are mad and they are sad to know it
but we will live our life the way we want
even with out a proper lab where you can study
Zinc Oxide or Romeo and Juliets :)
Losing You
I am losing u in the streets
where i found poetry
covered by autumn leaves
under the sky of crazy November,
the month i died with you
in my poetry
where i found poetry
covered by autumn leaves
under the sky of crazy November,
the month i died with you
in my poetry
Korou's Scissor
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
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
Poem for Prakash
never before
i have seen such a face like yours
One side of a face wants to live
with an eye looking
at its future of a crippled life.
One side so dead with a blind eye
with the smashed jaw
and broken bones.
"Brother! touch this
See! the bones are all broken
into pieces"
I touched your face
knowing i would write this poem
helplessly peeping through a night
that tells me 'I dont belong here'
first time i saw you
you were lying half unconscious
at AIIMS
with the nurses giving you injections
that your generation already has more or less
unconsciously on some hospital beds
or consciously hiding from the wind that carries
the smell of a rotten valley
You came to Delhi
with a bullet in your head
with one eye blind
with a father who sold away
his land to save a son.
Perhaps Delhi is the origin
of the bullet in your head
yet you come here carrying
your half dead body
Doctors they looked at you
with their face squeezing out
like rats
You came out saying with the best smile
i have seen:
"they say "bahut mujkil hai""
i distracted you saying
"there was an article on you in tehelka"
you asked "Is my photograph there?"
you wondered how your friends would react
after seeing you.
But your face is the face of our generation
every broken bone is the broken dreams
you believe you will recognize
the one who shot you at that night
Yes, slowly this world will forget
only you will not forget this world
and your father in his slippers
walked away for his sick sister
Leaving us alone stranded
And we shook hands
but you passed me the anger
and you left me
carrying the unconscious land
on your small shoulder saying
with your innocent smile
"i will catch my own vehicle to Manipur Bhavan"
I asked to myself
"who left this land here?"
I see every pieces of it in your face
I see it turning its back on me
as you walked away
like it is prompting;
I can't do anything like every ship of fools.
I watched you fading away
And i found myself in a market
of potatoes and tomatoes
looking for something to cook
that could make me feel home
i have seen such a face like yours
One side of a face wants to live
with an eye looking
at its future of a crippled life.
One side so dead with a blind eye
with the smashed jaw
and broken bones.
"Brother! touch this
See! the bones are all broken
into pieces"
I touched your face
knowing i would write this poem
helplessly peeping through a night
that tells me 'I dont belong here'
first time i saw you
you were lying half unconscious
at AIIMS
with the nurses giving you injections
that your generation already has more or less
unconsciously on some hospital beds
or consciously hiding from the wind that carries
the smell of a rotten valley
You came to Delhi
with a bullet in your head
with one eye blind
with a father who sold away
his land to save a son.
Perhaps Delhi is the origin
of the bullet in your head
yet you come here carrying
your half dead body
Doctors they looked at you
with their face squeezing out
like rats
You came out saying with the best smile
i have seen:
"they say "bahut mujkil hai""
i distracted you saying
"there was an article on you in tehelka"
you asked "Is my photograph there?"
you wondered how your friends would react
after seeing you.
But your face is the face of our generation
every broken bone is the broken dreams
you believe you will recognize
the one who shot you at that night
Yes, slowly this world will forget
only you will not forget this world
and your father in his slippers
walked away for his sick sister
Leaving us alone stranded
And we shook hands
but you passed me the anger
and you left me
carrying the unconscious land
on your small shoulder saying
with your innocent smile
"i will catch my own vehicle to Manipur Bhavan"
I asked to myself
"who left this land here?"
I see every pieces of it in your face
I see it turning its back on me
as you walked away
like it is prompting;
I can't do anything like every ship of fools.
I watched you fading away
And i found myself in a market
of potatoes and tomatoes
looking for something to cook
that could make me feel home
Collage: Free Verse
Cut my tongue
slip it inside your cunt
it will start speaking
something else to please you
or it may die
before it reaches your womb
it is not the tongue
it is the matter of heart
Waking up at this hour
i cook bamboo shoot
as the dream smelt home
i sold away my freedom
to all birds
in return they pay me
bird's eye view of a tiny insect
who seeks freedom
from elephant
slanted eyes they look at me
poisoning the sound of silence
deprived of a clear blue sky
i pray for a red one
a red sky with nipples
which rain freedom
some go for bullets
some go for tablets
or all they sit by the roadside
chattering like sparrow
and they celebrate
a feast in the name of east
is it sadness or madness
that night is crying
through the hole
of the old banyan tree
with the fallen leaves wiping
the streets scarred by their boots
slip it inside your cunt
it will start speaking
something else to please you
or it may die
before it reaches your womb
it is not the tongue
it is the matter of heart
Waking up at this hour
i cook bamboo shoot
as the dream smelt home
i sold away my freedom
to all birds
in return they pay me
bird's eye view of a tiny insect
who seeks freedom
from elephant
slanted eyes they look at me
poisoning the sound of silence
deprived of a clear blue sky
i pray for a red one
a red sky with nipples
which rain freedom
some go for bullets
some go for tablets
or all they sit by the roadside
chattering like sparrow
and they celebrate
a feast in the name of east
is it sadness or madness
that night is crying
through the hole
of the old banyan tree
with the fallen leaves wiping
the streets scarred by their boots
To a sick Man
To a sick Man
who coughs to be scolded
by his wife
to a sick man
who lays on bed when his night
tangled up in his eyes
to never let them close
to a sick man
who sings like crow
who still collects books of poems
when bombs rain on his tin roof
To a sick man
who demands his friends to revolt
when all he knows is
how not to sleep at night
when his wife is sleeping next
who coughs to be scolded
by his wife
to a sick man
who lays on bed when his night
tangled up in his eyes
to never let them close
to a sick man
who sings like crow
who still collects books of poems
when bombs rain on his tin roof
To a sick man
who demands his friends to revolt
when all he knows is
how not to sleep at night
when his wife is sleeping next
Slippery Indian Citizen
Sailing across the Indian Ocean
fishing with a bamboo stick
all the way from the Koubru mountain
fishing pearls for my love
who left me for good
who left me hanging between my rusty guitar strings
a small town boy I was,
who has seen the ocean only in Baywatch
or in Discovery Channel
I have never smelt an ocean before
but it smelt familiar
it smelt like the god of hand's job
the god that create humankind
No, it was all a day dream
call it a poet's fantasy
I was sailing in my own semen
with my bed as boat
with my zero balance ATM card as map to nowhere
with no compass to tell me I am east or west
north or south.
Why? Why?
Why did I confuse a pool of my own semen
with Indian Ocean?
Why, you tell me?
I remember reading by heart
the preamble in school of fools.
still I remember by heart
all the fundamental rights.
Yes! I am an Indian citizen
with bonus fundamental rights
"right to to be shot any time
right to be called an militant"
again later that night
I smelt something familiar
I couldn't move too
It must be a nightmare I thought
after reading Hindustan Times
and Tehelka Magazine
with 2000 farmers committing suicide per page
with two women raped in Kashmir in a corner
with Manipur in flames
I couldn't move
I have never understood India's head
but now I felt India is on top of me
with all its blood on my face
suffocating me
that morning I woke up tired
in the garbage boy's knock on my poor door
until the day I went to Khajuraho
and saw those god given positions
I didn't understand that
that night I was in 69 position
with India.
I never had sex that way
but why with India?
Was my citizenship demanding too much?
Why did India let me suck all her blood?
Why did India take my tongue within her slippery organ?
My tongue was stuck, it tasted blood
Why did it all happened before I could see India's face?
Or Is India wearing a burqa?
Nevertheless I discover India
I am the third after Vasco De Gama and Nehru
But I have become a joke
since I claimed it
like my own sperm
dying under the Summer fan.
O! I have become a slippery Indian citizen
fishing with a bamboo stick
all the way from the Koubru mountain
fishing pearls for my love
who left me for good
who left me hanging between my rusty guitar strings
a small town boy I was,
who has seen the ocean only in Baywatch
or in Discovery Channel
I have never smelt an ocean before
but it smelt familiar
it smelt like the god of hand's job
the god that create humankind
No, it was all a day dream
call it a poet's fantasy
I was sailing in my own semen
with my bed as boat
with my zero balance ATM card as map to nowhere
with no compass to tell me I am east or west
north or south.
Why? Why?
Why did I confuse a pool of my own semen
with Indian Ocean?
Why, you tell me?
I remember reading by heart
the preamble in school of fools.
still I remember by heart
all the fundamental rights.
Yes! I am an Indian citizen
with bonus fundamental rights
"right to to be shot any time
right to be called an militant"
again later that night
I smelt something familiar
I couldn't move too
It must be a nightmare I thought
after reading Hindustan Times
and Tehelka Magazine
with 2000 farmers committing suicide per page
with two women raped in Kashmir in a corner
with Manipur in flames
I couldn't move
I have never understood India's head
but now I felt India is on top of me
with all its blood on my face
suffocating me
that morning I woke up tired
in the garbage boy's knock on my poor door
until the day I went to Khajuraho
and saw those god given positions
I didn't understand that
that night I was in 69 position
with India.
I never had sex that way
but why with India?
Was my citizenship demanding too much?
Why did India let me suck all her blood?
Why did India take my tongue within her slippery organ?
My tongue was stuck, it tasted blood
Why did it all happened before I could see India's face?
Or Is India wearing a burqa?
Nevertheless I discover India
I am the third after Vasco De Gama and Nehru
But I have become a joke
since I claimed it
like my own sperm
dying under the Summer fan.
O! I have become a slippery Indian citizen
Stranded
I am stranded
between this city and that land
my body here
my shadow there
nostalgia is a phobia
when nights die slowly
with fragments of poetry
i am caught in a pool of blood
yet my toes dig the morning sand
of my innocent days
i wear this city
with all its street lights
yet i cry the tears
that brought from home
i have sliced the night of this city
with words of anger
yet i sob as i learn
my anger is synonymous to hunger
that i carry from city to city
for the land i never own
between this city and that land
my body here
my shadow there
nostalgia is a phobia
when nights die slowly
with fragments of poetry
i am caught in a pool of blood
yet my toes dig the morning sand
of my innocent days
i wear this city
with all its street lights
yet i cry the tears
that brought from home
i have sliced the night of this city
with words of anger
yet i sob as i learn
my anger is synonymous to hunger
that i carry from city to city
for the land i never own
just a girl
i am just a girl
who bleeds routinely
sometime i bleed tears
sometime silence
And now i have learn
what to do
when i become a woman
who only possess a bed
and a kitchen
i will grow thorn
in the bed
i will cook poison
in the kitchen
salt it with my past tear
and a drop of blood
for every season
and serve them in my stained clothe
who bleeds routinely
sometime i bleed tears
sometime silence
And now i have learn
what to do
when i become a woman
who only possess a bed
and a kitchen
i will grow thorn
in the bed
i will cook poison
in the kitchen
salt it with my past tear
and a drop of blood
for every season
and serve them in my stained clothe
War Cemetery, Imphal
O! foreing soldiers
i pity you all
you just become another brick
where the lovers turn their back on
or hang their inner garments
reading your names
even the kids know
you don't belong here
as surname ends with no "m"
Why dont you tell these living soldiers
to go away before they die like us
or they want the guns to salute their awful coffins?
i pity you all
you just become another brick
where the lovers turn their back on
or hang their inner garments
reading your names
even the kids know
you don't belong here
as surname ends with no "m"
Why dont you tell these living soldiers
to go away before they die like us
or they want the guns to salute their awful coffins?
bomb me
arrest me
my mind is a revolutionary one
it is going to explode anytime
Or Bomb me
with all your grenades
with all your smart ass agents
I have written my own epitaph
"To the generation
i have left my revolution
to prostitute you all"
my mind is a revolutionary one
it is going to explode anytime
Or Bomb me
with all your grenades
with all your smart ass agents
I have written my own epitaph
"To the generation
i have left my revolution
to prostitute you all"
Junky Poem
Nights we know are dark
Days we have survived are bloody
and how can you ask me not to drink
Air we breathe stinks
food we eat rot in our mouth
and how can you ask me not to smell her bosom
Days we have survived are bloody
and how can you ask me not to drink
Air we breathe stinks
food we eat rot in our mouth
and how can you ask me not to smell her bosom
To the tourist
Forget about Chandni Chowk
Forget about Jama Masjid and Lal Qila
Come to my Imphal
Don't forget to bring your Sony camera
You drench in the rain of Imphal
or you take a bath in Imphal river
and take snaps in different pose
and show them to your grandchildren
they will believe you are a war returned hero
even you are all wrinkled and withered
Forget about Jama Masjid and Lal Qila
Come to my Imphal
Don't forget to bring your Sony camera
You drench in the rain of Imphal
or you take a bath in Imphal river
and take snaps in different pose
and show them to your grandchildren
they will believe you are a war returned hero
even you are all wrinkled and withered
Time
Time never knocks at your door
it never arrives, never departs
Time will never treat you like a stranger
yet it will never greet you
like a morning cup of tea with steam
Time is a spinning wheel
but you never come back to the point
where you started
Instead you get older and older
while time remains young
with your memories of childhood
Hell to the ticking clocks
Hell to the big city clocks
without them too
time never stops
Even if the human civilization shatters
Time will never depart
Time marries not the sun but the Universe
Time never climbs to the church bell
it is you that announce the death
and ring the bell saying "it is the time to mourn"
It is you, Human Being
and your awful agony
that surrenders to time
Thinking it is your enemy
it never arrives, never departs
Time will never treat you like a stranger
yet it will never greet you
like a morning cup of tea with steam
Time is a spinning wheel
but you never come back to the point
where you started
Instead you get older and older
while time remains young
with your memories of childhood
Hell to the ticking clocks
Hell to the big city clocks
without them too
time never stops
Even if the human civilization shatters
Time will never depart
Time marries not the sun but the Universe
Time never climbs to the church bell
it is you that announce the death
and ring the bell saying "it is the time to mourn"
It is you, Human Being
and your awful agony
that surrenders to time
Thinking it is your enemy
Tonight, Loneliness and the Princess
waited for such fine weather
Finally it arrives tonite
and it catches me with my loneliness
and I am trying now to hide
My existence has been questioned
This curtain talked to me many times before
but tonight it is just a piece of unwashed clothe.
how must i learn to kiss this night
with this weather?
My love, she is shooting me arrows
right at my atheist heart
reminding me the princess
who spat at my face
for the land i talked so much.
O princess, you were sweet
with your foreign tongue
forgive me as i was just the clown
in the circus of that night
forgive me as i was not a real patriot
in Imphal but in delhi
Your love slapped me
and i was Pacha Meitei
crying on the shoulder of Imphal
No! i was crying on the shoulder
of my friends,
the slap was sweet
and as quick as bullet
But it never can dry my tear
it is all i have
and i am proud for every drops of my tear
This night has lost its way
my loneliness confuse it
my existence seeks no meaning in my poetry
but tonight i see myself crumbling into the ants
and looking up at my very door
which i hit many times
cursing the land i love
Finally it arrives tonite
and it catches me with my loneliness
and I am trying now to hide
My existence has been questioned
This curtain talked to me many times before
but tonight it is just a piece of unwashed clothe.
how must i learn to kiss this night
with this weather?
My love, she is shooting me arrows
right at my atheist heart
reminding me the princess
who spat at my face
for the land i talked so much.
O princess, you were sweet
with your foreign tongue
forgive me as i was just the clown
in the circus of that night
forgive me as i was not a real patriot
in Imphal but in delhi
Your love slapped me
and i was Pacha Meitei
crying on the shoulder of Imphal
No! i was crying on the shoulder
of my friends,
the slap was sweet
and as quick as bullet
But it never can dry my tear
it is all i have
and i am proud for every drops of my tear
This night has lost its way
my loneliness confuse it
my existence seeks no meaning in my poetry
but tonight i see myself crumbling into the ants
and looking up at my very door
which i hit many times
cursing the land i love
Curfew
I
Starving fathers and mothers
spitting saliva
defying hunger
protesting sitting at their courtyard
sipping black tea
talking insanity of Mr. Ibobi
while their children walk out on the roads
giggling wiping their watery nose
with white chalks
writing on the deserted road
whatever they have learnt in schools
whatever they have heard in songs
"Unity in Diversity"
"Sanaleipak Moneypur"
II
Dangling phaneks and bras and panties
singing freedom in the wind of wild east
from the top of their lungs
wind kissing the fallen leaves
burning tyres spinning towards the military trucks
broken mirrors singing "Cut me if you can"
and the last cry, cupped by silence,
looking again for its way
to find its destiny in history, in books
in speeches.
Starving fathers and mothers
spitting saliva
defying hunger
protesting sitting at their courtyard
sipping black tea
talking insanity of Mr. Ibobi
while their children walk out on the roads
giggling wiping their watery nose
with white chalks
writing on the deserted road
whatever they have learnt in schools
whatever they have heard in songs
"Unity in Diversity"
"Sanaleipak Moneypur"
II
Dangling phaneks and bras and panties
singing freedom in the wind of wild east
from the top of their lungs
wind kissing the fallen leaves
burning tyres spinning towards the military trucks
broken mirrors singing "Cut me if you can"
and the last cry, cupped by silence,
looking again for its way
to find its destiny in history, in books
in speeches.
love in the time of killings
Don't tell them
I send this love letter
in this time of protest and killings
but to be frank
when the ground under my feet
is soaked in blood
I can no longer be hopeful
of my generation
except our love
How insane i am
to think of making love with you
when they are slaughtering my generation?
can you believe?
Our devil minister, chief devil
is waging war against us
handing Ak47s, SLRs, LMG to the mindless dogs
and all we have is a mountain of ashes
and he knows Mountains are famous for their silence
we can not wage war against him
He is not alone too
Delhi got this "Kill East Policy"
since then our lives are dicey
I have even given up to be so focussed about life
I believe for one last time
we must make love
and let it sprays on these streets
where i walk with fear
let our screams run in river
let our sweat be fuel to burn him alive
His and their bullets may be a big full stop in our lives
But our love will live forever
wearing our old clothes
I was just telling my freind
"So what, if we are soaked in blood
Our heart is still hungry to own a land of peace"
But deep down in me
I can't wait to see our love
throwing light in this age of darkness
Yes, it is the age of darkness
I am writing this letter sleeping next to you
and i can't see you and i dont know when will you receive it
I send this love letter
in this time of protest and killings
but to be frank
when the ground under my feet
is soaked in blood
I can no longer be hopeful
of my generation
except our love
How insane i am
to think of making love with you
when they are slaughtering my generation?
can you believe?
Our devil minister, chief devil
is waging war against us
handing Ak47s, SLRs, LMG to the mindless dogs
and all we have is a mountain of ashes
and he knows Mountains are famous for their silence
we can not wage war against him
He is not alone too
Delhi got this "Kill East Policy"
since then our lives are dicey
I have even given up to be so focussed about life
I believe for one last time
we must make love
and let it sprays on these streets
where i walk with fear
let our screams run in river
let our sweat be fuel to burn him alive
His and their bullets may be a big full stop in our lives
But our love will live forever
wearing our old clothes
I was just telling my freind
"So what, if we are soaked in blood
Our heart is still hungry to own a land of peace"
But deep down in me
I can't wait to see our love
throwing light in this age of darkness
Yes, it is the age of darkness
I am writing this letter sleeping next to you
and i can't see you and i dont know when will you receive it
to the CM
We all know
your existence in our poetry
is not as some flowers or the moon
but as the rapist of Mother Manipur
who still sucks her dead nipples
who still melt her frozen blood to sell away
to the Parliament House;
in return you get full loads of army trucks
to make this land a funeral house
You jump over
from one death to other
sucking lifeless cold and dry blood
How long How long
the white kurtas can veil the red blood you sucked?
It is all transparent now
We all know
Our history has reserved a big chapter for you
to sit, sleep and eat with your gluttonous heart.
your existence in our poetry
is not as some flowers or the moon
but as the rapist of Mother Manipur
who still sucks her dead nipples
who still melt her frozen blood to sell away
to the Parliament House;
in return you get full loads of army trucks
to make this land a funeral house
You jump over
from one death to other
sucking lifeless cold and dry blood
How long How long
the white kurtas can veil the red blood you sucked?
It is all transparent now
We all know
Our history has reserved a big chapter for you
to sit, sleep and eat with your gluttonous heart.
i am your son
Mother, I am sorry
I am still a loser
I can't still earn
Yet i know
the last few morning stars light the sky to dawn
and the dawn pulls up the sun from ocean
and morning arrives with sleepy school kids
and noon comes with lunch
evening arrives with gossip
and night with street lamps with no electricity
Still i can't manage a day
trying to do so many things at a time
as i know life is short
and i am scared i will miss what i want to be
and no one pays me, mother,
for what i want to be
such is this world, Mother
and i am a loser with a the tag
"I am your son"
I am still a loser
I can't still earn
Yet i know
the last few morning stars light the sky to dawn
and the dawn pulls up the sun from ocean
and morning arrives with sleepy school kids
and noon comes with lunch
evening arrives with gossip
and night with street lamps with no electricity
Still i can't manage a day
trying to do so many things at a time
as i know life is short
and i am scared i will miss what i want to be
and no one pays me, mother,
for what i want to be
such is this world, Mother
and i am a loser with a the tag
"I am your son"
bleed generation
We sat the evening in a park
with Sanjit's body and Rabina's chappals
with no key to a room
we were stranded like rats in a crowded city road
we sat with one kilogram of chicken
with one royal stag bottle.
we waited for any room to be opened
to house our tired souls
and the fake encounter
we didn't know how to handle
as we have seen so much of it
or read or discussed in many useless
conversation that lasted like
a burning of a mantu bidi
we measured our past
with many pegs of whiskey and vodka
we sang a victim's song
we fed ourselves everything we couldn't digest
we shot the night
peeling the streets of Delhi
and reached Gurgaon
among the skyscrapers
we were the ants
we were the drunken ants
who forgot to move
we were the witches
that rode brooms...
leaving behind our roots to the poet
who desires it sitting in the clouds of Meghalaya
again we sat in a field
the naked dead poet chased the roaring planes
the painter threw his phone
to a canvas of black holes.
our urinal telepathy led us to a bush
and the dawn broke
and it was drizzling with our little pissing
the city was rained with our territorial pissing
we dipped our poems
in the sweet cups of tea
we all forgot
where was the dead bodies
when we saw each other
when the first rays of sun struck our ugly
little drunk faces
and we laughed plucking the tiny white flowers
if white was the symbol of peace
then i plucked enuf white
that my land would turn into white ashes
we kept on riding, driving
as we knew we are the Bleed Generation
with Sanjit's body and Rabina's chappals
with no key to a room
we were stranded like rats in a crowded city road
we sat with one kilogram of chicken
with one royal stag bottle.
we waited for any room to be opened
to house our tired souls
and the fake encounter
we didn't know how to handle
as we have seen so much of it
or read or discussed in many useless
conversation that lasted like
a burning of a mantu bidi
we measured our past
with many pegs of whiskey and vodka
we sang a victim's song
we fed ourselves everything we couldn't digest
we shot the night
peeling the streets of Delhi
and reached Gurgaon
among the skyscrapers
we were the ants
we were the drunken ants
who forgot to move
we were the witches
that rode brooms...
leaving behind our roots to the poet
who desires it sitting in the clouds of Meghalaya
again we sat in a field
the naked dead poet chased the roaring planes
the painter threw his phone
to a canvas of black holes.
our urinal telepathy led us to a bush
and the dawn broke
and it was drizzling with our little pissing
the city was rained with our territorial pissing
we dipped our poems
in the sweet cups of tea
we all forgot
where was the dead bodies
when we saw each other
when the first rays of sun struck our ugly
little drunk faces
and we laughed plucking the tiny white flowers
if white was the symbol of peace
then i plucked enuf white
that my land would turn into white ashes
we kept on riding, driving
as we knew we are the Bleed Generation
Tomba and the Poem
I met you when the poem was in cradle
We never talked too when the poem was crawling
We talked only after we crossed Bramaputra River
And In the noise of the train
We brushed our teeth together
You came with a pain in your heart
With your bags full of untold stories
So we stood together washing our face
Staring at each other through the broken mirrors
Of that summer train like school kids
You kept on singing “Californication” till the train halted
We travelled the city in auto rickshaws
We looked at each other through its side mirror
And a time had come we shed our clothes
But not for the hot summer
But Inside my tiny little room
Inside which I had cut my hands many times
For my idiotic thoughts and stupid worries
The poem too shed its clothes
Growing its limb as we breathed fast
Many nights you sang “Sunflower Sutra”
To the poem and it slept away like a sweet girl
Slowly you opened your bags
And words fed the poem, it cried and cried
Helplessly like it had be thrown down
From the terrace of your brick house
And you and I became the most beautiful thing
On earth while the poem wept for your stories
We were sweet like anything under your thick blanket
(Still I smell your blanket)
You read me Shakespeare
And explained as you knew I hardly understood
And asked me “Isn’t it beautiful?”
And I nodded my head and said Yes!
And we kissed
We cooked together the best Kangsoi
We slurp it like cat
The rice, we ate
Like we had been the prisoners of war in the city
In the night in the day
We always had monsoon
And still we were always eager for it
But the poem was all wet with it
One day in a crowded railway station you departed me
And I popped up with the poem and my guitar
In a strange place with strangers
There I made friends with strangers
They were all Bengalis and Marathis
One drunken night in a cheapest bar
They snatched the poem from me
On the very table where matchsticks were thrown out
Like death in my homeland
Where ashtrays were filled with stars and galaxies
They read it, sang it out loud in their mother tongue
Like the cigarette in my hand, my heart burnt
So in the ice cold glass of whiskey I dived
And with my heavy heart I slept away the night
Next morning I woke to a field of marijuana
And I, who was poor and hungry always
Had to eat, smoke and fuck the leaves
So I emerged next to the poem again
Sitting in a library of astronomers
The poem flew among the stars and galaxies
Searching for its root
It even asked why Newton was kept under an ugly Banyan tree
Why was there a stone imitating apple
And it flew to Moreh
And rested awhile sleeping
Inside a hole of a half opened pumpkin
It woke up all yellow
And again it flew back to America
For all my wanting to be a beatnik
And learnt to have free sex
One day again I popped up next to you
You came to me with no flowers as usual
We felt complete with our weekend drinks
And monsoon arrived
But the poem was walking free on the streets in our land
Like a rag-picker
It wore the blood of Paorabi Bomb Blast in October
It lamented for the highway 39
It laughed at the futility of revolution
It sang for the barber’s radio
Crying for the barber who was killed
Now the poem doesn’t bother you and me
Only sometimes you ask me where is it
You have forgotten too “Sunflower Sutra”
And I don’t know too where the poem is gone
With its broad shoulder
Without bothering our stories
Now it has become a Lamjasara
I never bother too
Where the poem is walking away or doing
But if it has done something wrong
They will come looking for me
As I raised it from that streets of orphans
We never talked too when the poem was crawling
We talked only after we crossed Bramaputra River
And In the noise of the train
We brushed our teeth together
You came with a pain in your heart
With your bags full of untold stories
So we stood together washing our face
Staring at each other through the broken mirrors
Of that summer train like school kids
You kept on singing “Californication” till the train halted
We travelled the city in auto rickshaws
We looked at each other through its side mirror
And a time had come we shed our clothes
But not for the hot summer
But Inside my tiny little room
Inside which I had cut my hands many times
For my idiotic thoughts and stupid worries
The poem too shed its clothes
Growing its limb as we breathed fast
Many nights you sang “Sunflower Sutra”
To the poem and it slept away like a sweet girl
Slowly you opened your bags
And words fed the poem, it cried and cried
Helplessly like it had be thrown down
From the terrace of your brick house
And you and I became the most beautiful thing
On earth while the poem wept for your stories
We were sweet like anything under your thick blanket
(Still I smell your blanket)
You read me Shakespeare
And explained as you knew I hardly understood
And asked me “Isn’t it beautiful?”
And I nodded my head and said Yes!
And we kissed
We cooked together the best Kangsoi
We slurp it like cat
The rice, we ate
Like we had been the prisoners of war in the city
In the night in the day
We always had monsoon
And still we were always eager for it
But the poem was all wet with it
One day in a crowded railway station you departed me
And I popped up with the poem and my guitar
In a strange place with strangers
There I made friends with strangers
They were all Bengalis and Marathis
One drunken night in a cheapest bar
They snatched the poem from me
On the very table where matchsticks were thrown out
Like death in my homeland
Where ashtrays were filled with stars and galaxies
They read it, sang it out loud in their mother tongue
Like the cigarette in my hand, my heart burnt
So in the ice cold glass of whiskey I dived
And with my heavy heart I slept away the night
Next morning I woke to a field of marijuana
And I, who was poor and hungry always
Had to eat, smoke and fuck the leaves
So I emerged next to the poem again
Sitting in a library of astronomers
The poem flew among the stars and galaxies
Searching for its root
It even asked why Newton was kept under an ugly Banyan tree
Why was there a stone imitating apple
And it flew to Moreh
And rested awhile sleeping
Inside a hole of a half opened pumpkin
It woke up all yellow
And again it flew back to America
For all my wanting to be a beatnik
And learnt to have free sex
One day again I popped up next to you
You came to me with no flowers as usual
We felt complete with our weekend drinks
And monsoon arrived
But the poem was walking free on the streets in our land
Like a rag-picker
It wore the blood of Paorabi Bomb Blast in October
It lamented for the highway 39
It laughed at the futility of revolution
It sang for the barber’s radio
Crying for the barber who was killed
Now the poem doesn’t bother you and me
Only sometimes you ask me where is it
You have forgotten too “Sunflower Sutra”
And I don’t know too where the poem is gone
With its broad shoulder
Without bothering our stories
Now it has become a Lamjasara
I never bother too
Where the poem is walking away or doing
But if it has done something wrong
They will come looking for me
As I raised it from that streets of orphans
freedom death
I ran away from the sun
I hid from the moon and its soothing shine
Still I heard the bomb blast
Still I heard the burning of the burnt lives
And I lost my count upon death
I became a deaf who hears only coffin nailing
And a day came
That the history of mankind
Said “when death walks upon a land
There soon will be freedom”
So again I started counting coffins
As I sold coffin
I even broke my doors and windows
For the carpenters who make coffins
I took my bills to the court
And measure at the weighing machine
The machine said justice must come first
So I left with disgust as I have never heard
Of such word as ‘justice’
And went to a church
I took off my clothes
And show the counts on my body
I asked “when is freedom arriving
When will it ever land up in my homeland?”
He said “I don’t have an answer
I was just a freedom fighter
Who had died without a light of freedom
On me”
And now I leave the question to time
As I have been forced to be one of them
I hid from the moon and its soothing shine
Still I heard the bomb blast
Still I heard the burning of the burnt lives
And I lost my count upon death
I became a deaf who hears only coffin nailing
And a day came
That the history of mankind
Said “when death walks upon a land
There soon will be freedom”
So again I started counting coffins
As I sold coffin
I even broke my doors and windows
For the carpenters who make coffins
I took my bills to the court
And measure at the weighing machine
The machine said justice must come first
So I left with disgust as I have never heard
Of such word as ‘justice’
And went to a church
I took off my clothes
And show the counts on my body
I asked “when is freedom arriving
When will it ever land up in my homeland?”
He said “I don’t have an answer
I was just a freedom fighter
Who had died without a light of freedom
On me”
And now I leave the question to time
As I have been forced to be one of them
Slipping Dreams
slipping dreams,
sipping darkness
of many long nights,
stands now like a mountain
asking me
"where have i been sleeping"
like my lover's favourite question
I search my answer
touching my bed
to find its warmth.
again another dream slips
from the burning cigarette
sipping smoke
without a talk.
it slips away
hand in hand with others.
and i wake to an evening
of fumes from the burning roads
with a poem
Of distrust and hate
sipping darkness
of many long nights,
stands now like a mountain
asking me
"where have i been sleeping"
like my lover's favourite question
I search my answer
touching my bed
to find its warmth.
again another dream slips
from the burning cigarette
sipping smoke
without a talk.
it slips away
hand in hand with others.
and i wake to an evening
of fumes from the burning roads
with a poem
Of distrust and hate
Dogs in my Land
Dogs in my land
They do not bark
They shoot at housewives
They don't move their tails
they hide them
to be one of us
they wear masks
but they can't bear
the smell of human flesh
they use the very cup
Of civilization
that ever reached this land
to kill their preys
Dogs in my land
the most evolved dogs in my land
you will see them mopping the tables
and floors of the monkey
inside the Bungalow
They do not bark
They shoot at housewives
They don't move their tails
they hide them
to be one of us
they wear masks
but they can't bear
the smell of human flesh
they use the very cup
Of civilization
that ever reached this land
to kill their preys
Dogs in my land
the most evolved dogs in my land
you will see them mopping the tables
and floors of the monkey
inside the Bungalow
School Bag
With a bag, full of dreams,
Called 'school-bag'
On his back, he walks barefoot
On the road to a primary school
Some dreams of a little man, his father
Some dreams of his Mother, now a widow
the bag carries, it wraps, it covers
The dreams fly away one after another
from the pages of small books
from the lead of his pencil
As he opens the school bag
to carry the picked grains of pea
while coming back from school
He, with a proud smile, pours
that handful of peas on his mother lap.
To him, slowly
the emptiness of Chengfu open the doors
to the noise of the city market
to the vastness of unploughed fields
Now his little pen needs no ink
it needs a bucketful of sweat in the sun
his pencil sharpener turns into a spade
His small books become the fields
where he does his homework
He still wears the same trouser,
stitched out from his father's,
it doesn't fit him any more
Nights become short
for all his tired and aching muscles
And the school-bag turns
Into the rich men's sacks
that he carries on his back
to deliver from one house to another
from one shops to another
Called 'school-bag'
On his back, he walks barefoot
On the road to a primary school
Some dreams of a little man, his father
Some dreams of his Mother, now a widow
the bag carries, it wraps, it covers
The dreams fly away one after another
from the pages of small books
from the lead of his pencil
As he opens the school bag
to carry the picked grains of pea
while coming back from school
He, with a proud smile, pours
that handful of peas on his mother lap.
To him, slowly
the emptiness of Chengfu open the doors
to the noise of the city market
to the vastness of unploughed fields
Now his little pen needs no ink
it needs a bucketful of sweat in the sun
his pencil sharpener turns into a spade
His small books become the fields
where he does his homework
He still wears the same trouser,
stitched out from his father's,
it doesn't fit him any more
Nights become short
for all his tired and aching muscles
And the school-bag turns
Into the rich men's sacks
that he carries on his back
to deliver from one house to another
from one shops to another
For the Foreign made Arms
Foreign made arms arrive in a town
With great honor through Jungles
In helicopters and big ships
welcoming by the hands of God
Promising everyone to reach heaven
Sleeping inside magic carpeted coffins
Propelled by gun powder
And in the land of Rock N’ Roll
A speech was delivered
To a panel of great human beings
Who will be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Whose rights are uncountable
Like the numbers of conferences they have attended
In the name of Ethiopia, Bosnia,
Palestine, Uganda, lately Iraq, etc
The speech called out names from the graves
Everyone shed tears of grapes
And swallowed again like grapes
And United Nation observed silence for 2 minutes
And in the town with great honor people are killed
Assured for compensations and dying-harness jobs
With great honor through Jungles
In helicopters and big ships
welcoming by the hands of God
Promising everyone to reach heaven
Sleeping inside magic carpeted coffins
Propelled by gun powder
And in the land of Rock N’ Roll
A speech was delivered
To a panel of great human beings
Who will be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Whose rights are uncountable
Like the numbers of conferences they have attended
In the name of Ethiopia, Bosnia,
Palestine, Uganda, lately Iraq, etc
The speech called out names from the graves
Everyone shed tears of grapes
And swallowed again like grapes
And United Nation observed silence for 2 minutes
And in the town with great honor people are killed
Assured for compensations and dying-harness jobs
Sleeping Hills
To you, sleeping hills
With all your silence
In your successful journey
Of motionlessness,
This helplessly hopeless Poet
Is keeping hope
With all your silence
In your successful journey
Of motionlessness,
This helplessly hopeless Poet
Is keeping hope
To the Armed Ones
The rivers with no water
The crying children, the King’s palace
The dying grandfathers
Water drops on leaves, flying birds
Butterflies in the garden
These are all for you
We are yours
The mother who sells vegetable is also yours
Aim your gun at us
Throw your bombs at us
We will die for you
We will live for you
Even the junkies are for you
They run when they see you
And you play hide and seek with them
And eventually they will lie on your boots
It is all for you
Take away the money in my pocket
Kill me whenever you want
Rape my sisters when you wish
It is all for you
Every blood I have in my veins
It will shed in the sound of your gun
My body will shiver
When your sword pierces me
I will be cremated on your land
To make your land a fertile one
With all my ashes
It is all for you
The wombs are for you too
Dig out the fetuses with your bullets
This land is for you
A land where sky meets earth
With the smoke, a bridge
With the tears, a river that climbs
The crying children, the King’s palace
The dying grandfathers
Water drops on leaves, flying birds
Butterflies in the garden
These are all for you
We are yours
The mother who sells vegetable is also yours
Aim your gun at us
Throw your bombs at us
We will die for you
We will live for you
Even the junkies are for you
They run when they see you
And you play hide and seek with them
And eventually they will lie on your boots
It is all for you
Take away the money in my pocket
Kill me whenever you want
Rape my sisters when you wish
It is all for you
Every blood I have in my veins
It will shed in the sound of your gun
My body will shiver
When your sword pierces me
I will be cremated on your land
To make your land a fertile one
With all my ashes
It is all for you
The wombs are for you too
Dig out the fetuses with your bullets
This land is for you
A land where sky meets earth
With the smoke, a bridge
With the tears, a river that climbs
I am Meitei
I am a meitei
Remnant of a great culture and tradition
And I was born caged
With chains of skulls and bones
My amulet is filled with lies
My naked body is a sign of hunger
My throat is dry in monsoon
My nails are rusty in harvest season
I am a meitei
I never had to go to a war
As my homeland is a concentration camp
And I will die rotten along with others
Neither my skin is white
Nor it is black
Nor my blood is Jewish
Yet I am a slave inside this camp
I borrow my face from Mongolia
My red ass from Japan
My martial arts from China
yet my moves from an earthworm
Remnant of a great culture and tradition
And I was born caged
With chains of skulls and bones
My amulet is filled with lies
My naked body is a sign of hunger
My throat is dry in monsoon
My nails are rusty in harvest season
I am a meitei
I never had to go to a war
As my homeland is a concentration camp
And I will die rotten along with others
Neither my skin is white
Nor it is black
Nor my blood is Jewish
Yet I am a slave inside this camp
I borrow my face from Mongolia
My red ass from Japan
My martial arts from China
yet my moves from an earthworm
Angel (named by Raju)
As I sleep away the night
In the lullaby of this city
Sung by night train
I once again jump
naked into the river
and touch the soil
underneath the water.
the summer sun
with all its ray in my pocket
i walk the paddy field
sprinkling light to the women
and we dance
with children of widows
we laugh and cry
shedding tears of pearls
and climb the mountains
of rot and death
to find a spring
out of those bullet ridden hearts
and lovely they say
I am the unmarried mother
of these children
In the lullaby of this city
Sung by night train
I once again jump
naked into the river
and touch the soil
underneath the water.
the summer sun
with all its ray in my pocket
i walk the paddy field
sprinkling light to the women
and we dance
with children of widows
we laugh and cry
shedding tears of pearls
and climb the mountains
of rot and death
to find a spring
out of those bullet ridden hearts
and lovely they say
I am the unmarried mother
of these children
Post Modern Times
In this post modern time
I see our pre modern
and modern literature drying out
at Rajesh Book store and Sahitya Akademi
And every one is dying a post modern dead
while everyone is making post modern love
wearing rubbers and rubbing cream
underneath the blanket of smoke and cries
A literary article says "post modern poets are the critics
of this Post modern society"
it says we write poetry
to record history,
so are we historians
of alternative history?
Falling of a post modern pomegranate
and the oozing sweet fluid with its smell
in the surface of a dreamland symbolizes our land
as Post Modern Critic says
Post modern Man dreams
a post modern dream
riding the post modern rickshaw
with fat post modern man behind him
with no beginning, no end
it just goes on like his post modern paddles
and post modern revolutionaries
are misusing the pre modern meaning
of revolution.
Pre modern whores are now
the post modern celebrities
'Post modern farmers have the luxurious lives'
the modern man said
massaging his own post modernly evolved legs
they have post modern machine to harvest
they have modern water pumps
they have post modern vehicles
and they grow only post modern paddy
not Moirang fou or Kumbi fou
"Unconditional Love is post modern
One night stand is post modern"
the post modern cultured people argued
Post Modern painters paint only stone age women
and smoke only Classic
Naked Woman is the beginning of everything
even the post modern is derived from it
Like Laiharaoba becomes post modern literature
30 years of pre modern
and 20 years of Modernism
and now post modernism
in which post modern death blooms
like flowers in different color
in which pre modern robbers and killers
become the Post Modern government
In which lazy post modern sons with class 8th grade
become the protectors of our post modern society
Post modern lovers are no more allowed
to sit at modern war cemetery
of the modern Japanese Soldiers
Post modern civil society organizations
do not want the pre modern culture to evolve
They talk to post modern phone
"the girls are wearing post modern mini skirts
the boys are wearing post modern cotton bras
Where is the image of our pre modern fanek"
Smoking pot is no more seen
the post modern way to reach the cloud
is to find veins in the post modern balls
and inject the post modern powders
In this post modern time
"everything is a loosing battle"
the post modern Christian said
and post modern singers like me
who are optimistic with our atheist heart
sing " we will still see post post modern society"
I see our pre modern
and modern literature drying out
at Rajesh Book store and Sahitya Akademi
And every one is dying a post modern dead
while everyone is making post modern love
wearing rubbers and rubbing cream
underneath the blanket of smoke and cries
A literary article says "post modern poets are the critics
of this Post modern society"
it says we write poetry
to record history,
so are we historians
of alternative history?
Falling of a post modern pomegranate
and the oozing sweet fluid with its smell
in the surface of a dreamland symbolizes our land
as Post Modern Critic says
Post modern Man dreams
a post modern dream
riding the post modern rickshaw
with fat post modern man behind him
with no beginning, no end
it just goes on like his post modern paddles
and post modern revolutionaries
are misusing the pre modern meaning
of revolution.
Pre modern whores are now
the post modern celebrities
'Post modern farmers have the luxurious lives'
the modern man said
massaging his own post modernly evolved legs
they have post modern machine to harvest
they have modern water pumps
they have post modern vehicles
and they grow only post modern paddy
not Moirang fou or Kumbi fou
"Unconditional Love is post modern
One night stand is post modern"
the post modern cultured people argued
Post Modern painters paint only stone age women
and smoke only Classic
Naked Woman is the beginning of everything
even the post modern is derived from it
Like Laiharaoba becomes post modern literature
30 years of pre modern
and 20 years of Modernism
and now post modernism
in which post modern death blooms
like flowers in different color
in which pre modern robbers and killers
become the Post Modern government
In which lazy post modern sons with class 8th grade
become the protectors of our post modern society
Post modern lovers are no more allowed
to sit at modern war cemetery
of the modern Japanese Soldiers
Post modern civil society organizations
do not want the pre modern culture to evolve
They talk to post modern phone
"the girls are wearing post modern mini skirts
the boys are wearing post modern cotton bras
Where is the image of our pre modern fanek"
Smoking pot is no more seen
the post modern way to reach the cloud
is to find veins in the post modern balls
and inject the post modern powders
In this post modern time
"everything is a loosing battle"
the post modern Christian said
and post modern singers like me
who are optimistic with our atheist heart
sing " we will still see post post modern society"
Remembering Somorendra (June Imphal)
you smelt victory on the way
the victory of Ho Chi Minh,
but you died with you own bullets.
and death has its own beauty.
now they stand a statue for you
again here you follow comrade Irabot.
on every 10th of June,
the flamboyant gentle men will make a vow to you
and your biography becomes just another book
in our library.
the victory of Ho Chi Minh,
but you died with you own bullets.
and death has its own beauty.
now they stand a statue for you
again here you follow comrade Irabot.
on every 10th of June,
the flamboyant gentle men will make a vow to you
and your biography becomes just another book
in our library.
Ema Keithel (July 8th)
Fish of all kinds meet here,
Half smoked, half dead, half rotten
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They were just caught this morning from Loktak
See the gills, smell it, smell it”
Plucked off breasts on lukmais
Unsold like their cheap humor.
Dreams get drowned
In the glasses of black tea
Like slices of ginger and lemon.
Flies oozing their sperm swarming
On kaboks, on honey, on the notes.
Women of all kinds join the noise,
Smoking half smoked bidi,
Blowing smoke from the nose,
Smiling as fresh as fish out of water,
Wearing flowers in their ears,
With the scent of chinghi creating ripples of fragrance.
Poets say it is the scent of Mother Earth,
But they care not for the poets
Nor for who sings ‘Hallelujah’
All they care is about their guavas and papayas
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They are not from Moreh”
They bring laughter from huts in torn thumoks
They bring stories in red tomatoes from the hills
They bring smiles in rotten potatoes and sour plums
Tears leaking from torn thumoks
In pineapple seasons,
Laughing at Bheigyachandra
And their far away- husbands’ testicles
They sell pineapples
In sarongs of all colors
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They are as sweet as honey”
They call with their hands
Rich gentle men and say:
“O Pamuba! I got lots of thing to sell
Come, come buy from me
This will be the first of the day
And you will be the luckiest in town.”
Some whisper to others
“This man has got eyes like pineapples”
Others giggle and whisper
“But we got only two nipples, ha ha”
“Hey bitch! Do ask your lady killer husband
To come here again” giggles
“Ho Ebemma! Don’t even think of him in your dream.
Do you see these Uhmorock?” they giggle again
Altogether their laughter,
Their stories a noise
To the ears of this city of villages
But a single laugh is a cry
That they can’t save for the last meal,
A meal of aluminum plates.
The city dwellers take away their laughter in pockets
The rag pickers dump their stories in their sacks
While Bheigyachandra keeps looking
Searching for the stars
In broad daylight
Half smoked, half dead, half rotten
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They were just caught this morning from Loktak
See the gills, smell it, smell it”
Plucked off breasts on lukmais
Unsold like their cheap humor.
Dreams get drowned
In the glasses of black tea
Like slices of ginger and lemon.
Flies oozing their sperm swarming
On kaboks, on honey, on the notes.
Women of all kinds join the noise,
Smoking half smoked bidi,
Blowing smoke from the nose,
Smiling as fresh as fish out of water,
Wearing flowers in their ears,
With the scent of chinghi creating ripples of fragrance.
Poets say it is the scent of Mother Earth,
But they care not for the poets
Nor for who sings ‘Hallelujah’
All they care is about their guavas and papayas
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They are not from Moreh”
They bring laughter from huts in torn thumoks
They bring stories in red tomatoes from the hills
They bring smiles in rotten potatoes and sour plums
Tears leaking from torn thumoks
In pineapple seasons,
Laughing at Bheigyachandra
And their far away- husbands’ testicles
They sell pineapples
In sarongs of all colors
“I swear by Ema Leimaren, echa yokpa ngamdana mange
They are as sweet as honey”
They call with their hands
Rich gentle men and say:
“O Pamuba! I got lots of thing to sell
Come, come buy from me
This will be the first of the day
And you will be the luckiest in town.”
Some whisper to others
“This man has got eyes like pineapples”
Others giggle and whisper
“But we got only two nipples, ha ha”
“Hey bitch! Do ask your lady killer husband
To come here again” giggles
“Ho Ebemma! Don’t even think of him in your dream.
Do you see these Uhmorock?” they giggle again
Altogether their laughter,
Their stories a noise
To the ears of this city of villages
But a single laugh is a cry
That they can’t save for the last meal,
A meal of aluminum plates.
The city dwellers take away their laughter in pockets
The rag pickers dump their stories in their sacks
While Bheigyachandra keeps looking
Searching for the stars
In broad daylight
Love Letter (July 12th)
“I miss you again,
I have missed you many times
But not like this before
You were so close to me
In that angry crowd
I ran after you breathing hard
That I couldn’t smell your odor in the wind,
But the wind wouldn’t tell me where you have run
And I lost you again, as I have many times before
In the thin air, in the noise of cries and death
In vain I searched for you
I hurt myself hitting iron walls
I became soft like cotton
To the walls,
But to you I was impervious
That’s why you ran away from me.
Please come back to me
You complete me
I was born and made for you
I want to break into your heart
I can’t stop loving you.
Jut say your body is all for me
Not for anyone else.” - So wrote a bullet to me
I had to reply,
“Baby, I am still mama’s boy
Mama don’t allow me to have affairs
She doest even let me climb alone the stairs
And you are still a stranger to me
Keep missing me
Let’s collide when I am stronger
Let’s meet somewhere in the Jungles of Myanmar
There we can penetrate what we see and scream
Among the banana plants and poppies and bushes.
And by that time I will have many surprises for you
And I promise you I will remain a virgin
Let’s not meet at the coffee bar or market place
Our public display of affection will shock many innocent lives”
I have missed you many times
But not like this before
You were so close to me
In that angry crowd
I ran after you breathing hard
That I couldn’t smell your odor in the wind,
But the wind wouldn’t tell me where you have run
And I lost you again, as I have many times before
In the thin air, in the noise of cries and death
In vain I searched for you
I hurt myself hitting iron walls
I became soft like cotton
To the walls,
But to you I was impervious
That’s why you ran away from me.
Please come back to me
You complete me
I was born and made for you
I want to break into your heart
I can’t stop loving you.
Jut say your body is all for me
Not for anyone else.” - So wrote a bullet to me
I had to reply,
“Baby, I am still mama’s boy
Mama don’t allow me to have affairs
She doest even let me climb alone the stairs
And you are still a stranger to me
Keep missing me
Let’s collide when I am stronger
Let’s meet somewhere in the Jungles of Myanmar
There we can penetrate what we see and scream
Among the banana plants and poppies and bushes.
And by that time I will have many surprises for you
And I promise you I will remain a virgin
Let’s not meet at the coffee bar or market place
Our public display of affection will shock many innocent lives”
To Jayanta (18th July)
do not cry for this land
this land was never yours
it was for those who died
in the east pakistan
it is still for them who hold guns
do not cry Jayanta
The night is all yours
if you can sleep
Look at your lover
Watch her cooking
or you cook her the best hawai in this city
the whistling pressure cooker
is whistling for you.
Hold her tight
She is all that you got to lose
and you belong to her
Watch your love stitching the broken hearts
watch her wearing white
to tame the unknown patients
in the Hospital
ask her to open your heart,
your not so open heart
Do not cry Jayanta
listen to Ginsberg's poem
you will smell the scent of marijuana
even when he cries
against this heterosexual world.
and yes you will laugh at his obsession
to asses of 14 year old boys
Or look at the mirror
throw away your spectacles
thats you in the mirror
with two eyes and a nose
and the hair that stood
when you listened to me reciting poems
Thats you!
Look around
your freinds and brothers are getting married
all they care is for life insurance
learn from them
there is lot more to do than wondering
and crying for death.
Don't cry
Just call your lover
through your old nokia phone
tell her how you wish the dead poets
to recite poems on your wedding day
how you wish to announce the day holiday
holiday for the students of Oinam High school
Tell her now you are not that lonely
She knows you travel up and down
from Nehru Vihar to Gurgaon
and you drop yourself dead
on the woolen bed sheet covered bed
in this summer, betrayed by monsoon
and she loves you
do not cry, just talk to her.
this land was never yours
it was for those who died
in the east pakistan
it is still for them who hold guns
do not cry Jayanta
The night is all yours
if you can sleep
Look at your lover
Watch her cooking
or you cook her the best hawai in this city
the whistling pressure cooker
is whistling for you.
Hold her tight
She is all that you got to lose
and you belong to her
Watch your love stitching the broken hearts
watch her wearing white
to tame the unknown patients
in the Hospital
ask her to open your heart,
your not so open heart
Do not cry Jayanta
listen to Ginsberg's poem
you will smell the scent of marijuana
even when he cries
against this heterosexual world.
and yes you will laugh at his obsession
to asses of 14 year old boys
Or look at the mirror
throw away your spectacles
thats you in the mirror
with two eyes and a nose
and the hair that stood
when you listened to me reciting poems
Thats you!
Look around
your freinds and brothers are getting married
all they care is for life insurance
learn from them
there is lot more to do than wondering
and crying for death.
Don't cry
Just call your lover
through your old nokia phone
tell her how you wish the dead poets
to recite poems on your wedding day
how you wish to announce the day holiday
holiday for the students of Oinam High school
Tell her now you are not that lonely
She knows you travel up and down
from Nehru Vihar to Gurgaon
and you drop yourself dead
on the woolen bed sheet covered bed
in this summer, betrayed by monsoon
and she loves you
do not cry, just talk to her.
And to you (July 20th)
and to you
O radical activists
standing at your doors
waiting for the wrong doers
to slit their throat..
when they gift and present culture
to you like a birthday cake
to you whose stomach
is full with dal-makhani and strawberry ice cream,
you throw them away saying
"it is a shame"
and suddenly you draped your khamen chatpa
and like kailashpati you dance
O culture! your RSS-like culture
to it i surrender my khudei
to your radicalism
i surrender my life
Please think about life
before you think of culture
Please stand by Sharmila
not by the rivers of our great history
of tradition and culture
the sun didn't see your radicalism
when three souls from lukhrabi thong
haunted the street of Jantar Mantar
O! save lives first not culture
save yourself first before
you set others to fire
O radical activist
Clad in red khadi of Fab India
Discussions and Adda
With bottled Bisleri water
and cuppa chai
And rind of blue smoke
Trailing from your well prepared speech
Your preoccupation is overpowering
But why the fury at the delicate acrobats
and the soft limbed contortionist
We all have learnt this way
Trying to duck against whizzing bullets
O radical activist
I have learnt my lessons
I have packed my bags
with folders from your seminar
heavy with profound words, strong argument
I collect them hoping
to sell it with my old newpapers
that contains grainy picture of death
and everything else
(Written with Priya)
O radical activists
standing at your doors
waiting for the wrong doers
to slit their throat..
when they gift and present culture
to you like a birthday cake
to you whose stomach
is full with dal-makhani and strawberry ice cream,
you throw them away saying
"it is a shame"
and suddenly you draped your khamen chatpa
and like kailashpati you dance
O culture! your RSS-like culture
to it i surrender my khudei
to your radicalism
i surrender my life
Please think about life
before you think of culture
Please stand by Sharmila
not by the rivers of our great history
of tradition and culture
the sun didn't see your radicalism
when three souls from lukhrabi thong
haunted the street of Jantar Mantar
O! save lives first not culture
save yourself first before
you set others to fire
O radical activist
Clad in red khadi of Fab India
Discussions and Adda
With bottled Bisleri water
and cuppa chai
And rind of blue smoke
Trailing from your well prepared speech
Your preoccupation is overpowering
But why the fury at the delicate acrobats
and the soft limbed contortionist
We all have learnt this way
Trying to duck against whizzing bullets
O radical activist
I have learnt my lessons
I have packed my bags
with folders from your seminar
heavy with profound words, strong argument
I collect them hoping
to sell it with my old newpapers
that contains grainy picture of death
and everything else
(Written with Priya)
Burma, If You have a Heart (July 18th 2009)
Burma, if you have a heart
Embrace me please
I have stopped looking at my own shoes
Now I look beyond these lofty mountains
I see nothing in them except a handful of useless dust
I stop looking towards west
To me it is all just a waste
I stop leaning on India
Delhi crushed me among its sky scrapers and dtc buses
Mumbai left me stranded in the railway tracks
Bangalore didn’t let me smoke at my own will
Kolkata has too much of mouth revolution.
Tamilnadu is still mourning for Prabhakaran
Madhy Pradesh is still a nightmare after bhopal gas tragedy
Gujarat is for Modi and his fundamentalism
Pune is for Marathis
And we have been the niggers of India;
Read Pacha
Burma if you need a lover
That’s me
Embrace me
kiss me please
Let me spread my wings in your poppy field
Let me sail in your smallest river with all my songs
Let me cry out all the tear that I save in this punctured heart
Let me shit out what I have eaten
I have eaten what have not grown in my land
I ate hilsha from Barak River
I ate wheat that grows in Uttarpradesh
I slept on the mattress that was made in Delhi
I sang Guthrie and Pete Seeger
I wear VIPs
I drank 8pm of Haryana at 8am in morning
I danced in the song of Indian Ocean
I climbed the Western Ghats with Iranians
I smoked the dry leaves of Manali
I watched both Hollywood and Bollywood movies
And still I was my own man standing alone
Singing “Ema Nangumbi Leite”
Now, I can’t praise my land with my poverty
Now I need a new land
That can erase my appetite and memories
And Burma that’s you
You are the closest.
Burma, let me see your prison
And makes me feel I suffer less
Less than your outlaws and criminals
I was told you dump your criminals in a Polang
Like chickens in Chingmeirong Bazaar
Burma, embrace me
Let me wear that bamboo hat
Like famers that farm everything
You will not regret to be my lover
No great poets write a line for your Tamu
And cheap sex inside your wooden cabin.
But I do, if you don’t believe me
Look at e-pao.net
You will find me whistling singing
Like my favorite gay poet;
“Go fuck yourself with your AFSPA”
Along the Indo-Myanmar border.
Burma, Just give me a shelter
You are the closest to me.
Let me measure the angles of Golden Triangle
Let me smack cocaine, let me smell you
Let me bleed out all this blood
That this heart churns breathing oxygen
That comes out from death and all these fake revolution.
I will pretend I love no monks
And their recent movement
Except the seven year old monk
And its bitterness
I even joke "monks evolve from monkeys
So they have the same color
Like gods evolve from dogs
So they are omnipresent"
I even hate U2’s song on Aung Sang Su kyi
I don’t know what the freedom fighters do in your Jungles
I haven’t heard about a hero of guerrilla warfare
Who emerges from your jungle.
But I know what I can do with myself
If you provide me a shelter and a guitar
A blank page and a poppy flower
Burma, just embrace me
You will find me very fine
Embrace me please
I have stopped looking at my own shoes
Now I look beyond these lofty mountains
I see nothing in them except a handful of useless dust
I stop looking towards west
To me it is all just a waste
I stop leaning on India
Delhi crushed me among its sky scrapers and dtc buses
Mumbai left me stranded in the railway tracks
Bangalore didn’t let me smoke at my own will
Kolkata has too much of mouth revolution.
Tamilnadu is still mourning for Prabhakaran
Madhy Pradesh is still a nightmare after bhopal gas tragedy
Gujarat is for Modi and his fundamentalism
Pune is for Marathis
And we have been the niggers of India;
Read Pacha
Burma if you need a lover
That’s me
Embrace me
kiss me please
Let me spread my wings in your poppy field
Let me sail in your smallest river with all my songs
Let me cry out all the tear that I save in this punctured heart
Let me shit out what I have eaten
I have eaten what have not grown in my land
I ate hilsha from Barak River
I ate wheat that grows in Uttarpradesh
I slept on the mattress that was made in Delhi
I sang Guthrie and Pete Seeger
I wear VIPs
I drank 8pm of Haryana at 8am in morning
I danced in the song of Indian Ocean
I climbed the Western Ghats with Iranians
I smoked the dry leaves of Manali
I watched both Hollywood and Bollywood movies
And still I was my own man standing alone
Singing “Ema Nangumbi Leite”
Now, I can’t praise my land with my poverty
Now I need a new land
That can erase my appetite and memories
And Burma that’s you
You are the closest.
Burma, let me see your prison
And makes me feel I suffer less
Less than your outlaws and criminals
I was told you dump your criminals in a Polang
Like chickens in Chingmeirong Bazaar
Burma, embrace me
Let me wear that bamboo hat
Like famers that farm everything
You will not regret to be my lover
No great poets write a line for your Tamu
And cheap sex inside your wooden cabin.
But I do, if you don’t believe me
Look at e-pao.net
You will find me whistling singing
Like my favorite gay poet;
“Go fuck yourself with your AFSPA”
Along the Indo-Myanmar border.
Burma, Just give me a shelter
You are the closest to me.
Let me measure the angles of Golden Triangle
Let me smack cocaine, let me smell you
Let me bleed out all this blood
That this heart churns breathing oxygen
That comes out from death and all these fake revolution.
I will pretend I love no monks
And their recent movement
Except the seven year old monk
And its bitterness
I even joke "monks evolve from monkeys
So they have the same color
Like gods evolve from dogs
So they are omnipresent"
I even hate U2’s song on Aung Sang Su kyi
I don’t know what the freedom fighters do in your Jungles
I haven’t heard about a hero of guerrilla warfare
Who emerges from your jungle.
But I know what I can do with myself
If you provide me a shelter and a guitar
A blank page and a poppy flower
Burma, just embrace me
You will find me very fine
Rusted Sickle Sheds Bangles (17th July 2009)
With the golden hammer and the unused sickle
He just reached from China with his troop
With great oval hips and fake tits.
He said his land is another Cuba
But without Castro
With all the death in the morgues
With the naked mothers
With great boxers and great traditions.
And his voice raised
Like he was in an election campaign
And there a man shone on the stage
With his lipstick and necklace
With his face half covered
Imitating the dancing courtesan Rekha
And how her heart beat
In the beats of tabla.
And there the Cuban ambassador
Smelling the garland of flowers
He wore in his wrist
Smoking the Havana cigar
Blowing smoke in east and west
Like once he advertised Guevara
Like he did with Cuban medicine.
And the culture savior spoke
“This is how we save our integrity”
Even if he doesn’t know how to save it
With other ethnic groups in his land
And Chacha Nehru rose from the bushes
In the smell of Nupishabi
In the clinking sound of his bangles
Chacha hit his own chest with his fist
And said “this is it
This is what I missed in my "discovery of India"
I must rewrite it again
I must rewrite it again”
And the culture saviour felt in Nehru’s feet
Leaving behind his rusted sickle to the dying peasants
And said “Sir! I belong to the Jewel Of India”
He just reached from China with his troop
With great oval hips and fake tits.
He said his land is another Cuba
But without Castro
With all the death in the morgues
With the naked mothers
With great boxers and great traditions.
And his voice raised
Like he was in an election campaign
And there a man shone on the stage
With his lipstick and necklace
With his face half covered
Imitating the dancing courtesan Rekha
And how her heart beat
In the beats of tabla.
And there the Cuban ambassador
Smelling the garland of flowers
He wore in his wrist
Smoking the Havana cigar
Blowing smoke in east and west
Like once he advertised Guevara
Like he did with Cuban medicine.
And the culture savior spoke
“This is how we save our integrity”
Even if he doesn’t know how to save it
With other ethnic groups in his land
And Chacha Nehru rose from the bushes
In the smell of Nupishabi
In the clinking sound of his bangles
Chacha hit his own chest with his fist
And said “this is it
This is what I missed in my "discovery of India"
I must rewrite it again
I must rewrite it again”
And the culture saviour felt in Nehru’s feet
Leaving behind his rusted sickle to the dying peasants
And said “Sir! I belong to the Jewel Of India”
Behind the Podium (July 18th 2009)
With spoon and fork in your hand
You eat your breakfast in the finest suit
Your leather shoes inside the table shine
Like you mother’s necklace.
With ease you eat the noodles
With the chopsticks
You learnt it from your Chinese students
Without uttering a word,
From your laptop, you read the headlines,
News from home,
A letter from graveyard.
You hit the table with your fist
The servant thinks he hasn’t put salt in the omelet
You say to him “I must go back home
It is turning into a graveyard”
And your phone rings
You say “hello”
She says “hi”
And you smile in air
With your eyes glittering
Like a child with a new toy
And your love blooms out of the bowl of noodles
Your heart brims with love
Like the glass of warm milk.
And you say “I was never happy with the girl from north”
And you hang up the call
Wiping the last drop of milk from your moustache
With your perfumed handkerchief
Saying “ I am going home, home is calling, take care.”
And you blow your nose
Till the tissue tears apart
With all your good smell and ironed shirts
You fly home with your flamboyant accent
And there you stand behind the podium
In front of Meira Paibis
Delivering great speech like Martin Luther King JR
But all that you lack is a dream that share with the women
And all that you have is self obsession
Dusting yourself standing in the heart of the land
Saying, “Ah! It smells home”
You book a flight to capital.
Once the plane takes off
You say goodbye to the mid air
And it says back “Coward! Coward! You Mr. Professor”
And there you reach safe and sound
And all your loyal servants who have betrayed the land
Seeking its meaning in great books of philosophy,
Psychology and theatres,
Come to hear from you
And you say you are disappointed with Draupadi
And your loyal servants say “it is disappointing “
And now you are filling forms to get the money
That you spent on flying to and fro to the land
Just for its aroma that you dusted off again
And your loyal servants too are filling forms to fly back to the land
To stand behind the podium
And deliver your speech.
You eat your breakfast in the finest suit
Your leather shoes inside the table shine
Like you mother’s necklace.
With ease you eat the noodles
With the chopsticks
You learnt it from your Chinese students
Without uttering a word,
From your laptop, you read the headlines,
News from home,
A letter from graveyard.
You hit the table with your fist
The servant thinks he hasn’t put salt in the omelet
You say to him “I must go back home
It is turning into a graveyard”
And your phone rings
You say “hello”
She says “hi”
And you smile in air
With your eyes glittering
Like a child with a new toy
And your love blooms out of the bowl of noodles
Your heart brims with love
Like the glass of warm milk.
And you say “I was never happy with the girl from north”
And you hang up the call
Wiping the last drop of milk from your moustache
With your perfumed handkerchief
Saying “ I am going home, home is calling, take care.”
And you blow your nose
Till the tissue tears apart
With all your good smell and ironed shirts
You fly home with your flamboyant accent
And there you stand behind the podium
In front of Meira Paibis
Delivering great speech like Martin Luther King JR
But all that you lack is a dream that share with the women
And all that you have is self obsession
Dusting yourself standing in the heart of the land
Saying, “Ah! It smells home”
You book a flight to capital.
Once the plane takes off
You say goodbye to the mid air
And it says back “Coward! Coward! You Mr. Professor”
And there you reach safe and sound
And all your loyal servants who have betrayed the land
Seeking its meaning in great books of philosophy,
Psychology and theatres,
Come to hear from you
And you say you are disappointed with Draupadi
And your loyal servants say “it is disappointing “
And now you are filling forms to get the money
That you spent on flying to and fro to the land
Just for its aroma that you dusted off again
And your loyal servants too are filling forms to fly back to the land
To stand behind the podium
And deliver your speech.
Broken
This heart was broken
and i called myself Manipur
i told my friends "they are manipur"
if they have love letters in their pockes
there will be love
if they have guns and bullets
there will be blood shed
But today, Russel
My heart is more than,
what i believed it was, broken
I take my words back
I can never be Manipur
The city rains
They dance with their naked chest
but my tear runs deeper today
as I cry for myself
and i called myself Manipur
i told my friends "they are manipur"
if they have love letters in their pockes
there will be love
if they have guns and bullets
there will be blood shed
But today, Russel
My heart is more than,
what i believed it was, broken
I take my words back
I can never be Manipur
The city rains
They dance with their naked chest
but my tear runs deeper today
as I cry for myself
A letter to Krishna from Brindavan
My Dear Son, Kanhai,
You have lived long enough for centuries
In the calendars, in the forms of stones and statues,
And among the Gopis with your bamboo flute
And you must have stopped worrying about death
But I can’t stop worrying about you
As I gave birth to you inside the prison
And I remember the day still
You, my own lump of blood, I still see you
As that little boy who steals curd and butter
What makes me worry about you
Is due to the crime rate in the place where you are living
I hardly get news of you and that land
These television networks
And newspapers hardly cover about the place
Is the name of the place “Imphal” or “Nepal” I don’t know?
I forget fast as I am getting senile.
Is the place part of our Bharat?
I have never heard people talking about it
Forgive this silly mother for such silly questions
I recently heard that there they even kill fetus
How barbaric is that?
I have always told you not to go to place
Where they speak some tribal languages.
So the moment you get this letter
Pack your back, stop playing your flute
It might be attractive to those barbaric ears.
And here Radha has been fasting for years
For her deprived past life
The Prime Minister too visited her twice
And Many Human Rights Activists had come.
Many feminist NGOs too are not happy with you
They even harassed me asking such question;
How did I raise you?
They call you a MCP, what does that mean?
And the Gopis are being deported.
Brindavan needs you
Ganga is also running dry with the ashes from the land
We can’t milk the cows without the sound of your flute
So come back, leave that land behind
I was even told about a poem written by a young Kabi
sometime in 1969
It was called “Hayingkhongyambi” or something
(have you ever heard of the poem?)
I talked about the poem to VHP leaders few years back
Before the demolition of Babri Masjid
They believed you must come back soon
Or fight back with your “Chakra”
Forever your mother
Yasoda
Stone number 110,
Brindavan
Dated 1/06/2009
**************************************************
Hayingkhongyambi is a poem by Thangjam Ibopishak
You have lived long enough for centuries
In the calendars, in the forms of stones and statues,
And among the Gopis with your bamboo flute
And you must have stopped worrying about death
But I can’t stop worrying about you
As I gave birth to you inside the prison
And I remember the day still
You, my own lump of blood, I still see you
As that little boy who steals curd and butter
What makes me worry about you
Is due to the crime rate in the place where you are living
I hardly get news of you and that land
These television networks
And newspapers hardly cover about the place
Is the name of the place “Imphal” or “Nepal” I don’t know?
I forget fast as I am getting senile.
Is the place part of our Bharat?
I have never heard people talking about it
Forgive this silly mother for such silly questions
I recently heard that there they even kill fetus
How barbaric is that?
I have always told you not to go to place
Where they speak some tribal languages.
So the moment you get this letter
Pack your back, stop playing your flute
It might be attractive to those barbaric ears.
And here Radha has been fasting for years
For her deprived past life
The Prime Minister too visited her twice
And Many Human Rights Activists had come.
Many feminist NGOs too are not happy with you
They even harassed me asking such question;
How did I raise you?
They call you a MCP, what does that mean?
And the Gopis are being deported.
Brindavan needs you
Ganga is also running dry with the ashes from the land
We can’t milk the cows without the sound of your flute
So come back, leave that land behind
I was even told about a poem written by a young Kabi
sometime in 1969
It was called “Hayingkhongyambi” or something
(have you ever heard of the poem?)
I talked about the poem to VHP leaders few years back
Before the demolition of Babri Masjid
They believed you must come back soon
Or fight back with your “Chakra”
Forever your mother
Yasoda
Stone number 110,
Brindavan
Dated 1/06/2009
**************************************************
Hayingkhongyambi is a poem by Thangjam Ibopishak
As the dead mother sings
As the dead mother sings
To the fetus inside her womb
“My baby,
Don’t ask the moon for anything
It will drop bombs and snakes
Don’t ask the sky for milk
It will rain blood till it suffocates you
My baby, don’t try to grow up
I heard they eat human flesh
Sleep my baby
Sleep inside my womb
This is the sweetest place in the world”
The fetus sings back with its little hands waving in air
“Mother! They have cut your womb
And taken me out
From my sweetest place in the world
They have kept me inside this chafu
They say it is a bit of Mother Earth
Mother, touch your womb
They have stitched it
Like you stitched the potato sacks
Mother, what do they mean by shoiren?
They call me by this name
They even say you are dead
And now I am starting to believe them
Cos you are lying inside the wooden box
Not on your bed
And I smell blood
And why is my brother crying?”
And a lullaby echoes in the streets of Imphal
But no one listens to it even if they hear
And wait for a day to sing their own lullaby
To the fetus inside her womb
“My baby,
Don’t ask the moon for anything
It will drop bombs and snakes
Don’t ask the sky for milk
It will rain blood till it suffocates you
My baby, don’t try to grow up
I heard they eat human flesh
Sleep my baby
Sleep inside my womb
This is the sweetest place in the world”
The fetus sings back with its little hands waving in air
“Mother! They have cut your womb
And taken me out
From my sweetest place in the world
They have kept me inside this chafu
They say it is a bit of Mother Earth
Mother, touch your womb
They have stitched it
Like you stitched the potato sacks
Mother, what do they mean by shoiren?
They call me by this name
They even say you are dead
And now I am starting to believe them
Cos you are lying inside the wooden box
Not on your bed
And I smell blood
And why is my brother crying?”
And a lullaby echoes in the streets of Imphal
But no one listens to it even if they hear
And wait for a day to sing their own lullaby
Bir Tikendrajit Road
O Brave Bir Tikendrajit!
You r heart is still thirsty
You are still the same hungry lion
My mother is pouring out all her blood
For you, gulp it slurp it
Ask her too for the flesh
She will never remind you
The land you died for.
She will never say a word to you
She is all yours
But you can never be a son to her
Look at your blood stained street
Still it will be walked
I must tell you
“It is just an incident to add a single orphan
In this orphanage”
Now you play the politics with bullets
Not with your blood stained sword.
Mother saved me
From your politics of bullets
I will grow up like any other orphan
Remembering this day and this road
But I swear to you Tikendrajit by my mother’s blood
That I will never pluck a flower for and from this land
I will never move a stone for them and you
And I will live till the day I see this land drowns
In my memory of this day
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