*******
Life
Life
goes
through
a tunnel
which we make
which we make
of
a certain length
to help ourselves
 |
| Book Review in The Kathmandu Post |
*******
Turn by Turn
Ants swarming upon the dead enemy—
the snake gives all it has, eventually.
So oily— in the sweltering sun, it lies
like broken beads— beside the pond.
*******
The Cavity
Prodding
with
a stickProdding
a
stinking decayed present
on
the pavement,
came
a small boy
in
tattered dreams, nagging
for
a rupee or two.
He
interested me
as I
saw myself
drifting
in his eyes.
He
had a hunger bit tongue
and
clear cavities
on
his tiny palms.
I
then
had
just a coin
that
I could spare.
I
gave it to him.
The
coin went in the hole
and
became a pebble
like
the ones scattered
everywhere
everywhere
down in the street...
He
seemed sad
as I
walked on, and now
this
poem...
May this
poem
not go—just like the dollar did—
into
the poor
hands of God.
*******
Suffocation
My days begin with short sighs
and end with a long one.
Reluctantly, I look back
at the miles completed each day.
They resemble the scribbling
of a young child. Meaningless—
like a dream lost in the waking. My desires
are red coals in a furnace. My soles—
on sharp edges— moving to re-realize
that change is like a slow, painful death.
What zigzags and circles
this life has become!
Like strands of straw entangled
on the spike of a moving bicycle,
I’m just making much noise of myself.
In the extremes of angry thoughts,
I curse and confess. I explain
to my people why I’ve been so negative.
And all they do is sigh with me!
Thwarted, my life is— a creature in a cage,
restless; a fish on a hook, gasping and giving itself
to the hookers. I see them enjoy
the dish that they turn me into. My sweat
is their salt; my weakness, their strength.
They’re black cobras that don’t stop following
even in my dreams. I don’t feel sorry but mad,
mad at these sinful souls.
They stink from afar. I see my flesh
stuck between their teeth. Their yellow teeth
that I want to yank. Their treacherous tongues
that I want to sever. Their whole system
that I want to put on fire. Shameless!
They dance a naked dance in their vanity
and lose sense of who their mother is. What,
what can be expected in these crowds of bogus people?
and end with a long one.
Reluctantly, I look back
at the miles completed each day.
They resemble the scribbling
of a young child. Meaningless—
like a dream lost in the waking. My desires
are red coals in a furnace. My soles—
on sharp edges— moving to re-realize
that change is like a slow, painful death.
What zigzags and circles
this life has become!
Like strands of straw entangled
on the spike of a moving bicycle,
I’m just making much noise of myself.
In the extremes of angry thoughts,
I curse and confess. I explain
to my people why I’ve been so negative.
And all they do is sigh with me!
Thwarted, my life is— a creature in a cage,
restless; a fish on a hook, gasping and giving itself
to the hookers. I see them enjoy
the dish that they turn me into. My sweat
is their salt; my weakness, their strength.
They’re black cobras that don’t stop following
even in my dreams. I don’t feel sorry but mad,
mad at these sinful souls.
They stink from afar. I see my flesh
stuck between their teeth. Their yellow teeth
that I want to yank. Their treacherous tongues
that I want to sever. Their whole system
that I want to put on fire. Shameless!
They dance a naked dance in their vanity
and lose sense of who their mother is. What,
what can be expected in these crowds of bogus people?
*******
O Pilgrims!
O pilgrims! O pilgrims!
Would you care to listen to my plea?
I fled to this place from a hundred hills away
losing my family in the wildfire
that smoldered for years in the villages.
Who can see the wounds I have?
Who can put some balm on them?
O pilgrims! I’ve haunting images in my dreams,
and I fear my mind will blast!
I fear not people but me.
Seeking solace, I sleep on this footway
and wake up to fuel my fury
in the midst of nights
I drink fire
and try to quench my thirst.
Oh, I’m burning in the belly, in my heart—
Can you see the flames?
My plight!
Ah, what a plight!
Life is a street dog
that barks at me as I try to love it.
Please, oh please,
convey my questions to your Gods. Ask them,
ask them why
they turn their backs on me.
O pilgrims! Ask them
what vengeance they took
on my family, and why,
and now, what they require of this boy that I am.
Uprooted, I was left to see
my origins dry. Ah, Poor me! I was just nine.
Now I do not have my sky.
I do not have land beneath my feet.
I’m a stranger in my own country,
walking in this stabbing void
among the sharp debris of my roof
blown off with cruelty
by the giants of the Age.
I know not where to go—
O pilgrims! I know not how to live,
carrying this
painful vista
of dislocation.
Please, oh please,
tell them
to move this way
and see for themselves
how desperately
a boy is looking for
Gods . . . in this Valley of Gods*!
________________
* Kathmandu Valley is well-known for its innumerable
temples and stupas and is often called The Valley of Gods.
*******
If she were a witch
If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living.
There was no earthquake in her screams, she was nothing
but wounds all over— red, blue, brown, purple—
bleeding on the junction— a
matter of extreme curiosity for kids around
peeping from below
your hips, or running after your footsteps.
Perhaps her busted head was a football!
Perhaps your boots, canes and stones were not enough, so
she was yelling at you to drag and thrash her more!
If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living.
Either she would surely escape flying on her broomstick
or just vanish with a simple click of her fingers right in
the beginning
or furiously hurl you into a dark cave where
she would avenge by forcing you to eat human feces
the way you forced her, or, she would hammer your hands and
legs
and teach you a lesson by pulling out your teeth
with more force and fury than you used to display your
bravado.
If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living
and your children wouldn’t die of dysentery or of fever. Possession
is what you did to
her, not what she did or did not.
She— just a single finger, and you— an entire village,
what a mad swarm of bees stinging a life to almost death!
Neither she spoke scary words nor called a thunder
down.
What’s black magic? Why would she only leave the marks of
her teeth
on your thighs or arms when she could have the whole of you?
(Note: Witchcraft is still
thought to be real in different communities. Once in my adolescence, I happened
to see a shocking display of barbarism being practiced upon a helpless widow
from the same community. People were beating her almost to death, with whatever
they came by. One woman even brought a kettle of hot water and poured over her.
They said that the woman would practice witchcraft and she had possessed their
children and sickened them. According to them, she would come to their houses
in the form of a cat when they were asleep at night and suck their blood. And
that was why, they said, they decided to punish her with the help of their
village shaman.
After that incident,
I’ve heard about a number of other such inhuman cases— some even reported in the
national media. So, I’d like to dedicate this piece to such innocent people who
had (and have) nothing to reveal but suffer.)
*******
Dying to Regain my Color
Into the valley of dirt
and all of a sudden
this miserable me, trying
to make my way
through the stinking hell of heights— dying
to regain my color
in this muddled, gravy plight— inching
below the cold, murky sky.
Who says I wanted all this
that I have become ?
and all of a sudden
this miserable me, trying
to make my way
through the stinking hell of heights— dying
to regain my color
in this muddled, gravy plight— inching
below the cold, murky sky.
Who says I wanted all this
that I have become ?
*******
Into the Deep
There is a sea, oh, there is a sea
inside myself, there is a sea---
mad, more mad than I can be.
No one knows how I break in its rise,
giving away all I have---
little by little to its tides
like a flower so fragile
I go off the shore in pieces, pushed away
and away into the deep
among the ruins unspoken of,
I lie still and shattered, trying
to collect myself in the saline waters.
*******
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