No Title!

My body lays idle like a corpse but it has got no shame
It breathes and smells the soil
And pretend to move in the whiff that brings the news of rain;
It still thinks breathing makes us alive
The smell of the soil soaked with blood,
It thinks, profusely makes our senses shiver in half-truths.

Yet, this body lays idle
In the streets, in the fields, in the mortuary
Everywhere it goes, like a stone seeking redemption
In silence and solitude, and in defeats!
Looking at it,
It seems I have become so death
That there is no dream for me;
Looking at it,
It seems breathing is all that I can do.

***(August 23, 2009)***

My Dead Poem!

As my life nears a conjugal obsession with death
I thought of writing few more poems on dead
May be, this way, I will hold on to live
Another thousand year, within myself
Stalking the death itself!

Everybody says I am a dead poet
But I think, my poems are alive
Much more alive than myself
My poems affirm a recourse on living
My poems challenge lives
My poems fear death
What else do I need from my poems
They are unto themselves
In dead and birth
I only write the way it comes
Even in dead thinking about another birth!

You may seek a sacrament
Saying these lines, these very lines are pitiless whims of a mortal
Or you may even think them to be a portentous shadow of my lies
But I carry them wherever I go
In my heart, knowing good enough that someday I will die
So what’s the harm writing few more dead poems
While I am all alive.

***(August 08, 2009)***

Killing Feilds!

I was mistaken
He wanted to kill me for a deer
In some dense forest
They came with all their gears
For a hunting, no prejudice
They thought, it moves
And true, I moved for my limbs!
Little later, there was a cry
They have shot someone else
In the field
They thought, there is no name
No identity, no fruit of tomorrow
‘we better off to a new terrain,
We better cleanse it off, for
a smooth path’.
After few minutes, another bang in my eardrum
It reverberates, recoiled like a spring:
You hold it tight and it sprung.
Some rallies, some cries…
Damn it, my ear was not a tin drum!
Again, little far away from my grave
They stroll and dogs barked!

***(August 08, 2009)****

Monsoon And My Dream!

They said, finally Monsoon is here
In its full glory, clouds wrapping dreams
Blood sweet raindrops, and ever opening arms
Of lovelorn souls, with occasional echoes
Of names lost in waiting game of meetings and promises.

I too knew Monsoon, for its date with dreams
I too loved Monsoon, for its grandeur of royal reception
I too wait for Monsoon, as my heart is parched, and
I wanted to soaked myself, the soul and body
With the raindrops distilled from the sky above
So that my tear never ran dry in this abandoned desert
I wanted those raindrops to hit my bare chest
So that it bore another well of summer springs, in my heart
I wanted this earth to embrace the Monsoon
So that the grave that laid evident to her innocence is wet again
And I could smell her sweat, drenched with tender remembrance!

They said, Monsoon has arrived
And everybody walks beside me
Leaving me behind in my own trail
They said, Monsoon has indeed arrived
And they all talked about me, looking at my hollow being
And blamed me for the reason, of Monsoon being late
In a land of dreams and continue talking:
Every July, somebody will cry and the poor Monsoon
It changes its course in depression, thinking:

"What do I do looking at the tears, in fact
I have no match for tears
Tears have silent wishes, and
My thunder and lightning, and they fade;
Tears are trifle and petite, but
My torrid downpour only caused floods of desire and
I got the blame of having a merciless despondent
But the tears, every single drop carries warmth of the heart;
And, tears don't dry even if I have to wait for a seasons!"

They said, this time Monsoon is fair to us
I continue to dream in closed room
Trying to feel the life in her lifeless body!

***(July 27, 2009)***

My Bible!

Oh! Man
He is as good as any other poem
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 Byzantium
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 extinct 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!

***(July 20, 2009)***

I THOUGHT OF DEAD AS A NEW POEM

I didn’t know that it takes time
Even for the dead to adjust and act upon accordingly
And look at me, this little lousy son of a man
Trying to walk like a phantom
Undying and haughty, head on, like an un-castrated bull!

Dead takes time to build its empire
It creates heroes out of nothing
I can be a hero to these lesser mortals anytime I want to be
But the dead, it thinks, I am not worth a dead;
Dead takes time to heal the deadness
It invokes and fascinates the living, thus
Harnessing every agonizing aspects of life, and
Me, a tasteless little moron, appreciate it for nothing;
But, the dead, it thinks and act, and
Wait for the right moment to build and expand its empire
From a wobbling distant cousin to life
Today, it carries a heaven of festivals
For each of us, with our choicest feasts!

And just now, I am recollecting myself a life
Bit by bit, from the first wail of a kid to todays hoarse complaints
And thinking about dead, if it really cares for what we do.
May be it’s a dream, asking for myself in altogether a different robe.

Sorry, I am still alive.

***(July 18, 2009)****

BEING MYSELF

How do I accept myself in this rot
Of faith and sin?
I did it by writing few lines a day
Like my own breathing,
Though sometimes choked up with all the lust and pain
Of being myself.
That’s why I asked myself, many a times…
How do I accept myself while the whole world is against me?
My poems, my rituals and emotions
They feel like allergic, and
Their imprints are all evident in the air
Like a ever hovering prison for me
Waiting to hop upon me, and
I living in these tortured months of exasperation
Seeking pleasure out of everything!

***(July 17, 2009)***

Oh July! Don't let me sleep!

How many days, for
How many days, did I slept
Hands tight, clenched fist, swollen heart
Until woken up by these cries!

July is a horror month
It bore me my curse
It pants ever slowly like a dying old man
July, the monsoon, the moisture
I don’t know what to mop and what to soak
But, someone cries every night
In this month of July, and
I sleep carrying my dead body
Wherever it wishes to go,
From gardens to graves
From libraries to mortuaries.

Oh July!
She still smiles at me;
You are a horror month
You let her go, with all the smiles
And I sleep every night
Waiting for her, to touch me again
But, how do I endure
Your cries, calling for a date with poets
Yet asking for a reason to be aloof, and alone.

Oh July!
Don’t let me sleep,
Even if my body brings the qualm of a drunken daily wager
Don’t let me sleep,
Even if my house drips your heavy downpour, like a crying widow
Don’t let me sleep,
Even if I have to wake up early for my gate, to welcome the thieves.

Oh July!
Don’t let me sleep,
I can’t wait for another July!

***July 16, 2009***

COMPOSING AN EULOGY

It was only yesterday, that
I wished to compose an eulogy on the death of man;
They said, man is dead and its remnants are all scattered,
Like tatters strewn all over a raunchy street
Like unpublished poems of some anonymous fireflies
Like the fabled alteration of hope
Like a poem in hurry, all gloss and some lethargic comments.
It was only yesterday, that
I wished to bury the hatchet, against an animosity called writing
With certain last page for a torn folio;
They said, there’s nothing like last page, it’s always like
The first draft that got drown in the sea of disbelief.
Man are never to be trusted!
Little while ago, a broken window and
A heap of cow dung, and
Few flies above, that hovered like some sequential paradox
They seduced me and I forgot to blame the howlers
For all the nasty euphemism;
They said, I look lot like a closeup man, ready
To be impaled and jeer for what I have siege a subtext within a rhyme.
That’s half truth and another half naked:
Me writing poems;
I blame if for who I am!

***(July 16, 2009)***

THIS IS THE POEM OF MY LIFE

1.
how would i know
the cries of words
when they are left unheard
to the mercy laden taunts of jingoist
how would i know
the worries of dead
when seasons are shoved and heaved around
for the wreckage called life
how would i know
if she ever cried
when the crops wail for a trinkling of hope

but i know why i write poem
i write poems to appease every restless word
i write poems to disown me, in the crowd
i write poems so that i can walk like a death man
2.
no more, thus i announce the death of me

i don't know how my corpse would be buried
i don't know how my grave would be dug
i don't know how my body would riled in the pyre
i don't know how my funeral would reek

but what i know is
my grave will host a scroll of poems
my funeral will be a procession of dead poets
3.
when i write poems, it invokes no magic
when i recite my poems, my voice crumbles
when i read your poems, my heart sinks

but the cinders of wood from my pyre
they will sing songs, and the sparks
they will applaud my poems

4.
oh, you don't know my wife
every night, when i kissed her
she recites me a poem, everynight
a poem a night, from the scribbles
that i left after each intercourse
she thought, my poems are fake
and she blamed me how i made her fake

i don't know how
but she did hate my poems
when i returned home after days rigour
she would recieved me with my poems
at the doorstep
so that i could see the hunger in her face
because, i did recite while she moan
so that i could feel her frailty
because, i did feed her only the poems
i didn't know how
but she survived, until
one day she dragged me at the altar of oblivion, and there
she slit her throat and offered me every drop of blood, and said
"this is the poem of my life".

***(July 10, 2009)***

they said, i hoarse
they said, i sulk
they said, i fake
even when i was dying,
then oneday,
one bright sunny day
i proclaimed thus:
death be my fren, in good and bad times
because, this living world
flowers, pretty damsels
blood and soul
they all think,
i fake
they all think
i hoarse
they all think
i sulk
when i die
when i cry
when i fight.
thus death becomes my best fren, and
he teaches me how to stand
he teaches me how to breathe
and he is always near me
waiting for me, every night!
and i never ask
how many frens you have got
and i will write poems
no matter he loves me or not

***(July 06, 2009)***

Manipur, Do I Need To Cry For You?

Manipur, you are a long lost dream
That is how I lament, that is how I mourn
But should I never cry!

My village, it overran a river
With few dotted bluffs on faith
And I grew up there, like pebbles
In the river stream, nothing disturbed
Except few ripples in the navel.

Today, that navel is growing deeper
Sometimes, it looks like a gorge in certain discreet highway
With many a unnamed veins for blood thirsty mongrels;
Sometimes, it looks like a pond of serenity
Revered by not many, but filled with tranquility;
Sometimes, it looks like a bowel of uncooked intestines
Ready to be feed upon and absorbed in the veins.

Manipur,
Tonight, far away from your valley
I ponder for a reason not to cry for you
There came the answer with few trickling of teardrops
And, that same ripple bowel
With infested malice,
It gathers what my teardrops could offer
And, it smirks!

Do I need to cry for you?

***(July 05, 2009)***