Monihari Bazaar
(a stationery market)
A giant snake loops through my mind
this game of feeling versus thought
is now at its fag end
If you keep playing the game, a dying flame
of meaning and nothingness
you might earn a chance to climb the ladder
For a foot soldier like me
the ladder is always out of reach
Still, I take a chance,
gazing at the ladder
A snake slithers in front of my mind –
someone pull me out of this loop
Or the snake will …
Or I will …
Slip past the serpent,
climb the ladder,
there’s the Monihari Bazaar
We go to hell
The living pray for the living
Treading over light
they dig graves for the dead
“God drives them mad before they die.”
Those with nothing but a handful of tears
are lined up and stitched with lead bullets
Let the slain be immortal
let the slayers be immortal
Let massacres be eternal
let the king’s decree be eternal
And we
living with our backs to the sun
We go to hell
Kohima
Upon your green spine,y
ou have let loose
a long lock of shadows.
The notes of the piano
knit a soft mist
in my blue teacup.
The mist and I
tumble from the tip of your breast
to yet another emerald frontier
With a Dream
While playing with a dream
the green waves of the mountains drew near
Beneath the teak trees
a serpent path slithered towards the stream
As I walked along the road
draping the green waves around me
the shadows of the teak trees followed close
I screamed
and all the leaves of the teak trees fell
the serpent path tightened around me
surging like a red river from the mountains
Human flowers bloom only in dreams
The trees grow at night
as a man’s life shortens in the dark
The trees are proud of their unique postures
curved and crooked, the trees
stretch passionately towards the sky
The pearl-encrusted stars wear colours
becoming clouds that dissolve into green
The trees swayto the tune of the falling rain
growing fuller andclasp each other in the darkness
They do not seek the rivereven when sorrow binds them
They don’t stop bearing ripe fruits
beneath the weight of shadows
They do not stop growing in secret
even as they stumble in the dark
Human flowers bloom only in dreams.
When we catch the shadow of trees,
We glance quickly into a mirror
we grow, soaked in blood,
while the trees drink deeply from the soil
darkness grows in the dark
all flowers are shadow-hued
only in dreams can we see
the colours of that darkness.
In the dark, we love
and hold each other close.
Excerpted with permission from The Yellow Metaphor: Poems from Assam, Jiban Narah, translated from the Assamese by Anindita Kar, Penguin India.
