Today I shall celebrate this blind night
I shall drink for its health
I shall puff on its complexion some of my cigarette smoke
I shall read him some of my poems
When I am emptied
I shall lead him safe and sound
To the edge of the day
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 120th birthday.
Today just before the light filled up the sky,
far off I heard bells sounding in the city.
Bells… why did I notice? As if sowing hate
the last shadows slowly and dolefully moved on.
Where have I left my sweet, childlike soul,
in what season, with what bell’s tune entwined?
In what season… and today to say my prayers
I stayed on bended knee in sorrow.
A prayer to beauty, to a forgotten mother,
to ignorance, to a smile, to the voice of a dream,
listening to the day’s bell of anguish
which sadly tolled an untimely death.
Once I wrote of leaders violating sacred tracts,
of those who cling to their terrible thirst for power;
of so many slaughters, the cruel campaigns of Kings,
of blood-brothers at battle, illustrious shields spattered
with kindred gore, trophies taken from would-be allies,
cities widowed once again of their countless peoples:
of these, I confess, I once wrote. It is enough to record such evil.
Now, all-powerful God, take, I pray, my sacred song,
loosen the voices of your eternal, seven-fold
Spirit; unlock the innermost chambers of my heart,
that I, Proba, the prophet, might reveal its secrets.
Now I spurn the nectar of Olympus, find no joy
in calling down the Muses from their high mountain haunts;
not for me to spread the idle boast that rocks can speak,
or pursue the theme of laureled tripods, voided vows,
the brawling gods of princes, vanquished votive idols:
Nor do I seek to extend my glory through mere words
or court their petty praise in the vain pursuits of men.
But baptised, like the blest, in the Castalian font –
I, who in my thirst have drunk libations of the Light –
now begin my song: be at my side, Lord, set my thoughts
straight, as I tell how Virgil sang the offices of Christ.
As it is true that I, like all, must die,
I crave that death may take me unawares
At the very end of some transcendent day;
May creep upon me when I least suspect,
And, with slick fingers light as feather tips,
Unfasten every little tenuous bolt
That held me all my years to this illusion
Of flesh and blood and air and land and sea.
I’d have death work meticulously too –
Splitting each moment into tenths of tenths,
Replacing each infinitesimal fragment
Of old dream-stuff with new.
So subtly will the old be shed
That I’ll dream on and never know I’m dead.
I am a woman
Round as the universe
A pyramid that ignores its secrets
Triangular in some parts
with perfect and calculable hypotenuses
on any one of its sides.
I am a woman
Square and stubborn
when it’s about you
Pentagonal when I plan
the most secret of my weapons
I am a woman
Lineal
the shortest distance
between your all and my nothing
I am a woman
point
perhaps of your references
If poets die young
they bequeath two thirds of their life to the critics
to graze and grow fat in
visionary grass.
If poets die in old age
they live their own lives
they write their own poems
they are their own might-have-been.
Young dead poets are prized comets.
The critics queue with their empty wagons ready for hitching.
Old living poets
stay faithfully camouflaged in their own sky.
It may even be forgotten they have been shining for so long.
The reminder comes upon their falling
extinguished into the earth.
The sky is empty, the sun and moon have gone away,
there are not enough street bulbs, glow-worms, fireflies to give light
and for a time it seems there will be no more stars.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.
The rain is about to fall,
Come through my window, butterfly.
Outside, when they become wet,
Those charming colors will melt away,
The flower will fall to the ground,
It won’t be able to save you, small butterfly,
Come through my window, butterfly!
A little one will manage to catch you,
He will place you in a small box and take you away,
After, he’ll paste you into a book
You’ll die, then, butterfly,
Hide inside my window, butterfly.
Marvelously, friends,
of what has harvested a burning passion
therefore not for that, there would be lowered,
accompanied by the moon, the night,
from the highest heaven to Earth.
My passion is that I love in such a way
that if I broke up, my heart would follow him.
Oh, I wish I knew.
If there is a way to be alone together
which do not reach the ears of the spy.
How wonderful
I want to be alone with my beloved
living, even when it is in my gut and in my chest.
We present this work in honor of Bihar Divas.
This is how the shloka goes —
women, nails and hair
once they’ve fallen
just can’t be put back in place
said our Sanskrit teacher.
Frozen in place out of fear
we girls held on tight to our seats.
Place, what is this ‘place’?
We were shown our place
in the first grade.
We remembered our elementary school lessons
Ram, go to school, son,
Radha, go and cook pakora!
Ram, sip sugar syrup,
Radha, bring your broom!
Ram, bedtime, school tomorrow
Radha, go and make the bed for brother.
Aha! This is your new house
Look Ram! Here’s your room
“And mine?”
Oh, little loony!
Girls are wind, the sun and the good earth
They have no homes
“Those who don’t have a home,
where do they belong?”
Which is the place from where we fall
become clipped nails, fallen hair trapped in combs,
fit only to be swept away
Houses left behind, paths left behind
people were left behind
questions chasing us, too left behind
Leaving behind tradition,
it seems to me I’m as out of context
as a short line
from a great classic
scribbled on a BA examination paper
But I don’t want
somebody to sit down and
analyse me
to pigeonhole me
At long last, beyond all contexts
with real difficulty
I’ve gotten here
Let me be hummed
like an abhang,
unfinished.
We present this work in honor of Human Rights Day.
Don’t sow a seed
Don’t paint a wall
Tomorrow it will have to fall
Let the dog howl and bark
Tomorrow he will Sleep in the dark
Let the cock crow
Let the hen lay
Tomorrow will be their last day
Let the children chop trees
Let them break
Let the destructive little devils
Ruin and take
For tomorrow they know not their fate
Don’t sow a seed
Don’t pain a wall
Tomorrow the yellow monster will take all
Let our sons dazed in eye
Rape and steal
For they are not allowed to feel
Let the men drink
Let them fight
Let what is said about them
Then be right
For they are not allowed to think
So bark, howl, crow,
Chop, break, ruin,
Steal, drink, fight,
Let what’s made of us be right
Tomorrow we gaze at a new view
Seas of sand given by you
And we say
Sow the seed
Paint the wall
Be at home in our desert for all
You that remade us
Your mould will break
And tomorrow you are going to fall
Poets Corner 