Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Poetry in 2011 The year that wasn’t KAPIL ARAMBAM
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
ever been kidnapped by a poet if i were a poet i’d kidnap you put you in my phrases and meter... YOLANDE CORNELIA “NIKKI” GIOVANNI, JR., “KIDNAP POEM”
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Arrival and Departure Poetry in 2011 The year that wasn’t KAPIL ARAMBAM
Arrival and Departure by Kapil Arambam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
A collection of poems from my blog: http://kapilarambam.blogspot.com/ As the Year Draws Towards Its End 6
29.
Meitei Uchi 30
2.
Hospital Haiku 7
30.
Lai Marakta Mee 30
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Sunset Blues 8
31.
Run 31
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Slam Normal 8
32.
An Accidental Acronym 32
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Firan Haiku 9
33.
Ebullition 33
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An Ode to the Fucklong 9
34.
Kom 34
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7 December 2011 10
35.
Mannaba-Manadaba Mayamgi Marakta 36
8.
On Sunday Becoming Sunday Suddenly 11
36.
Money: Different Perceptions 36
9.
Futilesquera 12
37.
No Rite 38
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Cosmic Motorboat Ride 13
38.
Arrival and Departure 38
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The Empty Set 13
39.
Disorientation of the Lost Boy 39
12.
The Message of Peace 14
40.
On a Fear, the World will not Agree 41
13.
Good Old Days No More! 15
41.
April Passes by the Shop 41
14.
Beyond the Aspen Groves 16
42.
Platform Poetry 42
15.
Tales the Dead Man Tells 16
43.
Press Start for Pressure 43
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The Public Day 17
44.
After the Day the Night was Killed 43
17.
Paper Plane Blues 18
45.
The Thread of Mess 44
18.
The Great Rush 19
46.
Koiba Chatpa 45
19.
Black Seeds and Others 19
46.
Kurak Langtaiba 46
20.
Between Equal and Unequal Distribution 20
47.
The Sleepwalkers 46
21.
It’s My Way or the Highway 21
48.
A Sentence on the State of Affairs 47
22.
On Waiting 23
49.
New Countries at Every Street Corner 48
23.
Dreams and Nightmares 24
50.
Interrogation Points 50
24.
The Haiku Intervention on Real Ideals and 51.
your love makes me 51
Realistic Ideas 25
52.
A Short Monologue on the Rational
25.
Mother 25
Motives for Owning a Land 51
26.
The Epic from Ougri 26
53.
From a Flying Fish 54
27.
Chalk and Cheese 27
54.
Baby, Buy me a Buy 55
28.
Our Happiness Hole 29
55.
Meaningless Meanings 56
contents
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
56.
Leibak Macha, Ei 57
74.
Thawan Haiku: An August 13 Tribute 77
57.
We Belong Together 58
75.
Fear Psychosis 78
58.
Capital Protest Pain and Rambles 60
76.
That Common Thing 79
59.
No Big Deal 61
77.
Seasonal Affective Disorders 80
60.
Maladjusted — The Midnight Madness 62
78.
Made in Yunnan 81
61.
Yong Choirol 64
79.
On Feeling Homeless, Yet Again 82
62.
Take for a Ride to Nowhere 65
80.
In Defence of the New 84
63.
A Free Verse and Some Smell... 66
81.
Short Stories’ Propaganda 84
64.
Maikhansigi Marumsida 68
82.
Inside the Big Picture 84
65.
On Dreaming in Colours and Light 68
83.
A Rendition of Dreams and Reality 85
66.
When I’m High 69
84.
After the First Fag After a Fix 85
67.
Roots Under Boots 70
85.
Silent Sounds of Sorrow 87
68.
Monsoon Blues 71
86.
To Leimakhong, With Love 87
69.
Detergent Power 72
87.
Please Don’t Include Me 88
70.
Cut, Don’t Fry 73
88.
Treading Between the Lines 89
71.
Mondays’ Moaning and Blues 74
89.
You Got the Things 90
72.
Written on the Mountain Highway 75
90.
Deadly Alive 91
73.
Written on the Plain Highway 75
91.
Centre Blues 92
73.
An Ode to the Independence Day 76
92.
Easily Mistakable Solace 92
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
As the Year Draws Towards Its End In its one-goal march to eternity The year is here again, cold but comfortably To give man another reason to be man. As immortality looms As the year draws towards its end, Fighting forever in few fleeting moments The world is waiting for another annual obituary. A couple of shots would herald the new year: Whiskies and rum will overflow, Though much lesser than the blood on the street; and the final murder of the last 365 days, Welcome the first death of the hopeful new sun For dying secerns living, a new living.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Hospital Haiku A strip of fifteen haiku that I brought from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi I hate going there The medicines’ smell’s vulgar Let me go elsewhere ...................................................................................... Right in front, she cries Left, the little girls giggle The men are pensive ...................................................................................... They have the papers Their death written on them, clear Where are the doctors? ....................................................................................... Between life and death, our home and the hospital, We smile and we cry ....................................................................................... Now there’s an old man He stares as if he knows us through his big black glass ....................................................................................... Hard, the madman shrieks He shouts he know where truth lives: Inside his sane mind ....................................................................................... All the world is sick Hospitals are bad for health Go, get drunk and die ....................................................................................... The doc smiles and speaks Almost pop out the man’s eyes Man! He’s got a girl! .......................................................................................
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Hoping to get well Sleeping on the cold footpath They wait for their turn ....................................................................................... The only good thing The tall, huge hospital has: The cute lady doc ....................................................................................... Token Forty-nine That will be quite a long wait Smoke in the washroom ....................................................................................... The docs discover His illness is from yearning Guns to be guitars ....................................................................................... I like white aprons It makes me a clean, real doc I cure love sickness ....................................................................................... A big instrument He got it stuck up his ass “Used to eat money” ....................................................................................... I went for treatment And I was prescribed haiku Now I feel so fine .......................................................................................
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Sunset Blues I saw it, right before my eyes, The vast, western horizon swallowed the big red sun; In a prisoner’s garb, remembering its final wish, waiting for its death, lying listlessly, The old dying light of the day On the ground, it had to give in to the night. And the dull tract was far and wide, becoming dark and gloomy, helping the night to strike. And the world turned invisible, As the night screamed might is right, Amidst the loud wails, until I can see The only cerise light from the fag As I puffed the twentieth time, Until the stars gave in to the day.
Slam Normal It’s a dime a dozen, in foreign slang, we can yell Killing and crippling that man like the lions preying on a gazelle Oh, it’s perfectly normal to have slipped on the shits sometimes, inside the crumbling, unclean toilets of our existence; and to have, to see, to taste blood in the flood of blood that we are drowned in, because it’s just normal. And that man is just another man, —Don’t care who he is. What say, I’m not drifting from the mainstream, What we kill is what the butchers do to the cows What we loot is what the sun does to the days. The other voice on the other side condemning our killing and condoling is too normal with time-honoured nothingness, Day and night; killing and mourning Predictable. It’s all normal. It’s all normal. It’s all normal. Kill the mind for a change and let us mourn.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Firan Haiku Colours of my land Like the rainbow it delights, Yet it never soars.
An Ode to the Fucklong* In its worst condition lies its best representation, Dusty grey, in a tatterdemalion position; As much as the fucklong can brave the frigid Decembers, No man would stand the sight of commandos in street corners. Something is more complicated than the thousands of bamboo pieces, The parts that make a fucklong whole; Only in cold-blooded obstinace can you fracture the fucklong’s fleshes, In this ripe age of brick and coal. Greedy eyes would dare not glare across, Violent streams would dare not flow across; Again, in its worst condition lies the best representation Of our lives well fitted in these jungle, drainage and commotion. In the morning when the air is light, The fucklong is too gloomy, and that’s our general feeling; On our best day, on our best night. We are so closely related, by blood and look, to the fencing. Bamboos be designed, Shackle all the politicos and patriots and police and the people Beneath the debris, inside the grunge and grime, something outside this piddle, Chain them in your twine. And now I have to go to the man of beautiful art, At Meinothong he sells more fine fucklong than the man at Babuthong; And I would let myself swallowed, supped within the rampart, And within this cocoon hold by torn but bright grey is where I belong. * Fucklong is the Manipuri word for a fence. It is a typical bamboo wall that we can see along so many streets in Imphal, and more plentiful in the leirak areas.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
7 December 2011 I There was no light last night because of load-shedding And today we have no light and we don’t know why We don’t know why there is light at all We could have done without it in all; So we gathered at the club tonight We don’t know why we gathered at the club We just gathered there And gabbed, and we don’t know why but we gabbed. II In total darkness Red and buttless cigarette lights punctuated the obscurity Whispers and voices sprinkled the tuneless melody As I had been away from home, my friends narrated The stories of time, past forward and future backward: of a local gambling den, How the dilapidated government school had changed into; of the several rehabilitation centres, Where there are new meanings of addiction; of a government so lifeless, Which we should be electing to power again; of a life so listless; Is it why this December is so dispirited? III The flowers of discontent are blooming while we withered unscrupulously; The pawn is colliding with mortgages, Houses and land are going up for sale. When I was heading back for home later I was choked with dust from the potholed road I gasped and grabbed my poetry for some breath And a Moreh torchlight led me through the darkness.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
On Sunday Becoming Sunday Suddenly When the sun of our eyes rises from the west and the north and the south but the east There is something in it that we see not so bright and something in the direction so wrong But for their being bright or wrong is just a reality For all the people are not people for they are people only when they are people There is something so strange in calling them people; Yet it is also so strange realising they are people After all, they are people who have always been people. For all the lives we are living Suddenly when we realise it’s a life we are living It is strange, for all these days, death was only alive There is something different in being dead and then alive, and it’s not dead but alive we are. When the gunman talk about love for his land When the politicoman talk about love for his land When the armyman talk about love for his land There is a difference, as if talking about different lands Different kinds of love, but their love it is for the same land. And when you talk about your kind of country And when I talk about my kind of country The worlds are so world apart And it is strange how the thoughts were imparted For the country is the same country but that is not same for us. When the master built the bridge over nothing I went to the newspaper with a thank-you note for the master For the favour and a feeling that some gratitude be expressed So what if it is his obligation — and I realised it suddenly, oh — And then repeat the same thing when he offers another bridge.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
When a Sunday is raped of its Sundayness There is something missing about this Sunday And while we are lost, mulling over what it has lost It is so strange all the Sundays have been Sundays all along On no other weekdays but on their own have the Sundays lived.
Futilesquera The newspapers bring all along, Each sunshine that comes all along— Stories of all bleak and gloom; as I read when I shit ah, the cigarette slipped! there is no time for all the mistakes all of us will die on time anyway. All the loos are the best outlet of all the craps that we regret. Now in November the sun’s changed it’s not its best for better winter’s warmth its cold warnings withhold now in-between my zombie’s soul’s empty trolls
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Cosmic Motorboat Ride lollygagging all along the inconsequential existence and then all was vain in vagrance until mysterious puissance in top speed, all gears rescued, —and then called up and then, the cosmic motorboat ride steers first, the filthy worldly corners; and the places of heavenly rapture, through the blackness dotted with specks of lights and time gets lost in the journey and the space is between me and my mind and no god has the right to interfere now the government is as dead as the gods now the centre has become infinite between the sprinkles of blues and blacks within what is witnessed the sentience lies a wobbly life shakes what the world is. We are a way for the universe to know itself. CARL SAGAN
The Empty Set For all the one-time beautiful white ibises that have migrated from the smoke-filled crimson skies, for all the cows that have abandoned the dry lands and colourless thickets, for all the lilies that have withered in unceasing autumn, for all the sensibilities that have been raped, for all the gloom and doom in this cocoon so worrying, the time has been never fitting for anything
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
What is absent, the warmth of spring inside us and the four corners of our homes, we found them ironically, in abundance outside our own self and in far away lands far away from home; and what is empty now in the summer or winter of yonder, when we are inside this bare abundance, far from the glaring eyes of our shadows and nakedness and nothingness In our islands of happiness the ocean of tragedy scorns; Exceeding control— Neither here nor there— Unknown pins puncture Inside us, all the places On the outside We are a floating mass.
The Message of Peace “Swaying and swinging, on the palanquin of the mortal’s plea, did I come with a pace that would beat the fabled tortoise in a race. White, off white, light sky blue, cerise and beige, the colours are eternally tinged with my existence, and shamelessly distorting and discolouring the ugliness of their world, in their stained surround where I’m painted as just too full of empty air and nothingness. Corporeal possession is only in. Ah! Vanity! I’m concern for what they say, though who they are I care not. But did they call me solemnly, one not so fine day, asking for me, never knowing I live only on grace and good taste and never would I last in the wildness of their hinterland. “With hopes for offering eternal bliss and enduring peace and many other things, which I pray for them that these things will show up with just a wave of my magic wand, I reverted to their letter of desperation with affirmation.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
“Oh, pity! There, in my gracious best I remained for a few earthly weeks, watching the life that moves slower than the stride of my decked litter and dumber than that funny animal of the parable. “Rise, rise above your narrowness, there is a big world to run across, to watch, to chase the stars of your dreams. What the monkeys were and what you have been, there is little use to show there is still a close connection. Gagging and strangling one another inside the bloodied compartment, where breathing is itself a matter of life and death, you should not have — no, never. I beseech, for the sake of my modesty and sanity, to let me cut this stay short and rush back to where I belong.”
Good Old Days No More! Nostalgia, when burning and craving for the days of yore, has two eyes; regardless of its intensity or apathy: One eye that sees a point of time from which it has been plunged, the moment of remembrance; and the other that sees the time out front. In as much as looks are deceiving, we would never see the images in our world but in the back of our mind. Perhaps it is an illusionary clock to show the perspective of time, as we live and experiment yesterday’s life with today’s and today’s with tomorrow’s and so on. Reminiscencing the sepiatinted memories as we found once in old family photographs, wishful contentment of even the wretched old days and taking delights in the sublunary actions and pleasure — on numberless hours so many times have we lost ourselves, unable to find our way out of the good old days’ retreat. And it’s hard to deny that the silly smile, in our private moments while thinking of the things, is too deep and convincing. From the old days, quite different from nostalgia, there is another matter that has captured our imagination; in general, the growth and progress of humanity. As we grow out of our primitive and parochial thoughts, we have embraced the idea of togetherness in the form of community and other higher levels of organisation as we have been monkeys no more. What really matters at this point is the overall outcome, when most of us in our group are lost in a warp of time. Even if we have dragged our feet forward like a disinclined mule waiting for the master’s whip to complete the back-breaking journey, the collective attachment to nostalgic thrill is something we cannot care to ignore. Too hell with progress. Too hell with the donkeys’ life. And we celebrate. The convention of the yesteryear. The revolutionary ideals of the inception period. The film and music of those days. Private memories, public histories. What not. This intoxication lies spreading. Just one point is enough to prove our objects of glorification exist in their truest sense: We are tired of the journey, that we ignore the present reality, that we are afraid of a brave-new-world kind of things, and that we are drowning ourselves orgasmically in the assumed cheerful old days. Now shall we feel we are happy because we have an imagined history created from the past? Now shall we believe the future depends on the past? Now shall we say we have so many greatness we can learn our lessons from, sometimes when we are not basking in the glories of the past? Or now shall we conclude — with a baggage from yesterday, a burden of today, and timidly tomorrow — we have to move forward for the sake of staying alive?
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Beyond the Aspen Groves What is it that we wish we have and that we always wish we have; And what is it that we wish we don’t have but by good chance, we never have? And it’s a tale of woe: We always have But wish we will never have And we don’t have But wish all the time we have. For long we have wished A road beyond these aspen groves Of dreadful silence, and inside there lies a troubling voice in us; Of shattered lives and emptiness.
Tales the Dead Man Tells When was the last time we met? On so many occasions we have been stumbling upon each other, and I do admit we have become so close that I lose the sense of space and time in your company. Your unknown human body would understand not, your dead mind would appreciate not—the vicious mess and nightmare that the ever increasing number of your folks has instigated, decreasing me to a simple number who has been divided by cold murders, monies galore and utter dejection. I’m so colourfully hopeless. Do you agree your number, however high, is now in drains? You and your folks haunt no more in the desolate leikai and leirak but live among us—now and then in the talking shop of the scoundrels, in the jungles of liberty, in every wakat meepham, in each line of my poetry, and in the shadows that shroud the landscape. We meet so often and I have seen you have sucked the life out of our living.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
From losing in a stream of unconsciousness, I have now started to speak your language. And I live to hear your tales: “Forceful and passionate I’m when looting the people, when I rob them off their vanity, rob them off their happiness, rob them off their contentment, rob them off their peace of mind And I keep my possession some safely inside Keat’s Grecian urn some on top of the Koubru some beneath the delicate petals of Siroi lily and some away from your glaring eyes of greed and disdain.”
The Public Day Hundreds of decorated tanks rolled down The street this morning in the vale No one came out to watch the spectacle withal On this public day of the town People they had marched to the mortuary To fetch the masses who were dead happily And lifeless bodies that would have come were busy Jostling to get a line on the eighth page Of the newspapers they will find their eternal place Occasionally punctuated was the street with flowers Strewn from the sky from jet planes from Russia With colourful cloth banners saying they were picked Specially from a large single garden But the fragrance was lost Before crossing the stream of scum And away from the street Unimportant people are lying down On the shadows of their own death Unimportant people are taken away To the torture chambers of humanity
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
While there is merrymaking— Self-glorification on the naked street Flaunting the guns from Israel and America Dancing to the tune of marching army bands
Paper Plane Blues We are birds without the wings squatting inside a box so crimson gazing at the eyeshot so dark. How would it be if all of us write a poem: Two and half million little verses of tiny buds that would the lilies bloom of colourful butterfly wings of the winter’s woes of lights and azure heaven? The places are so peaceful, The people are only too brutal, Was it deliberate We came into this box The apteral birds Then without the roots Now without the stems? How would it be if we take The two and half million little sheets and turn them into a big paper aeroplane Hop on it, recite each poem again Singing and humming In a child’s artlessness and soar across the skies and fly away to the lowly earth and land, land on ornamented trees? But where do we get the papers, and how do we express the words around this mindless chirping, when we are caged inside this coop of commode?
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
The Great Rush Chasing small miracles How much does this final touch mean? And how the mind rushes through the ravines Of the almost finished work To my haste, the sweep hands of the clock—it is grinning You fickle little thing! Uneasy, bang, unbend Take a deep breath; count to ten The world ain’t ending tonight Many people are going to drink blood And many more who will eat bullet When the minutes are hiding behind the seconds Let me finish the varnishing.
Black Seeds and Others Half dead in our sleep, we missed the sowing festival of construction, of pomposity and power, in the hours of our time. The saplings are now growing, watered with blood and puke and scum. Now we can also bleed and puke and die. We can bleed and puke and die now. The air smells pungent, the fire oppressively hot and so intolerable. The soul cannot take it anymore when the earth goofs up in the troubled waters. Fuck the ether. The authority — rubber-stamp hordes of farcical
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
plays and carbon copies of detached heads — builds on their whims. On us they trampled with their shit-smeared foot. If this is reality, let it be guillotined. Year in and year out, violence comes knocking on our head, violence comes as the uninvited guest, violence comes so menacingly — we are bleeding hate of the times. Animal urges, when the stomach is full, they are restrained. And us, a thousand stomachs appetise our urges, filling with the scum and puke. Stolen, looted, the stomachs become paunches of malign that cast shadows of misery on us and deceive the illusion of advancing times. Our march is in the revolution of the earth — but only so precisely violent, so predictable, so out of order, and so constantly backward in the evolution of animals — that spans from one foothill to another. I see the drapery that conceals the view from the foothill of Cheiraoching. It is becoming so true. It is inside. The reality is scum and puke.
Between Equal and Unequal Distribution Between equal and unequal distribution There are the differences galore The hills are taller than the valleys The rich are richer, the poor only too poor Roses are red but the grass is green Happiness, it cannot be how sad you are not The government cannot be the people The guns fire, and the syringes only fix. Between equal and unequal distribution The sameness, the balance do make up Lullabies, we hear in the gunshots Serenity, so real—we find inside the syringes The thieves, they are the owners now
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Truth is how much the facts are concealed And the truth is we are only animals. Between equal and unequal distribution Life’s lost in merely living it on The road to death are now marked The filth has cheated itself to become clean And the looted possession weighs heavier Between this equal and unequal distribution Where are the roads leading to?
It’s My Way or the Highway One day a long time ago, I traveled across the town in No Man’s Land. A place where you find blood flowing in streams. A place where darkness shrouds the sky, more than the burqas has been stifling sexuality in faraway Afghanistan. All of a sudden in the fervour, I was in a nameless highway, like a snake in a flood of misery the road skidded. The naked carcasses on the roadside shamelessly smiled at me. The chilly winds started blowing so unfriendly, it had shuddered every heat of the land. Yet it was less hostile than the people on the mountains looking down on me. And it was less worse than the living experience of the people. And it was less vicious than the fuckfaced authority. And I got up to go forward. The verdant landscape, punctured by various hues of blue in its artlessness best made me happy. The mystery of the nature weighs more than the contrived grandeur that can be measured in lengths and breadths. —At least in my perception. And then I saw some tree-people, their face blurred by the distance; but I could take in they were digging their trees, searching for their roots. I continued my journey. For a fag, I fell to a 10x10ft multipurpose kiosk.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Every thing was gettable there: petrol, DVDs, pan, some groceries and some assorted things. Five percent of petrol, which the land receive from the donor, was for sale there—another five goes to the oil pumps while the bulk balance goes to the fuckfaces we know who fuckfaces are, so I was told by the dullish shopkeeper. I wanted to dedicate the song to the fuckfaces ‘Go suck each other off your booty while we damn the peace’ And yes, I smoked sitting near the petrol bottles —so fake so cheap that there was no question of fire. And he showed me his DVD collection And he also sells charcoals, he said, to burn the winter’s butts. I was deadened by the silence that engulfs those areas. No activity. No nothing. But I was proved wrong by a thousand marching bands of protesters. They came out at one corner of the road I came across them while I was lost, my mind was lost in desolation of living. The wailing people had machine guns The wailing people fired blank in the sky of absurdity The wailing people had bombs to scare the shit out of their dogs The wailing people found no other animals The wailing people had frightened themselves in the affrighted land The wailing people were composing the songs of revolution The wailing people were singing and puking blood The wailing people had pena with guitar strings The wailing people were wailing for the decadence. The hour-long parade, the loud whirring marching was so transitory. The racket got over as soon as the group of Nuon Chea-looking guys towards the end of march went passed by me. That it seemed the noise vanished into thin air. But it did, it did—the isolated trees and shrubs bore witness, It was more cockeyed than a drunk madman. So it was a matter of frustration. So it was just the grub and chuck at the end of the day. And then it would be the duty of activists. And then
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
the endless cycle: eat bullet and shit potassium nitrate, guttle wallets of money like dogs tearing old sacks open and shed tears in the name of the land and the lord while some people, with their blaséd indifference, wasted their lives in the barren territory smeared with carmine. Then I went up the hill gumptiously. I saw the folks spending their lives, their slow life without ornaments and unaffected by the atomic clocks. But they were happy in their face I saw our true roots. And I came across a group of people. Reluctant were they to greet me, saying, “In this shithole—we know we belong together in this shithole—why are you pushing us further down while you are swimming away to the shithole on the other side? We don’t know how it is on the other side but now what we want is to get away from this shithole by hook or by crook.” I told the group, “We are together, let’s get out together…” But they left me in the wilderness of the mountain even before I could finish my sentence. And I, walking along the steep road, pondered on the absurdity of our lives. But that was not the end of the road, the unknown was spread far and wide. And my line was clear. Either my way or the highway it was From the highway, I took one of its part to make it a part of myself. Let the highway take the whole from me, I don’t mind The ownership I would not even claim but it’s right; It maybe lacking sophistication, it maybe short of worldly ideas but I’m convinced it’s right. And so I did commence my journey.
On Waiting Many suns have risen The morning has also become old Yet I have been waiting here As new as new it can be And as fresh as The oodles of fresh flowers in March The silence of a dead night The mother in the labour room
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
The excitement of an impending fete Like meeting a friend from the past Like a lover yearning for his love Like a child with bright, glistering eyes Like an animal on a full stomach Here I am, with prospect—waiting for no Godot, but looking into The wrinkled matutinal face of winter airs —for the Arrival.
Dreams and Nightmares If only Utopia was possible How the air would be so blissful If only this unreal real was unreal And if only the dreams were real And I would not want to be the birds And I would not search in the words And good it will be to paint the world with sables of truth And no more will be the uncouthness of the youth And no more will there be rejection And no more will there be dejection But now when I walk through the street I see the only route of the offbeat For the familiar roads, they are smeared with blood The people and equally, the things grunted We are forgotten, but nay forsaken The armies and cops would remind us often. I saw my dreams and nightmares As I wish now, as my heart shares Let these days be only in my sleep Out from the slumber, let peace and justice seep.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
The Haiku Intervention on Real Ideals and Realistic Ideas Carefree, a child plays The fickle butterflies flew Finding happiness. Those joys we have lost Now we praise felicity On misery’s lap. It’s silver lining We trust joy’s old as the sun The moon as sorrow. Today the dreams block the road to Utopia Action! They hollered! And so the machine And the lab, they are proving doubting, and guessing.
Mother: On Being and Becoming Your Son Mother, come see your son I’m what I’m today, What I can, I can do now. One not so fine day Mother, you called me from the Sagolband side of the Nambul while I was smoking grass on the QT, on the other Uripok side, squatting on the moist riverbank sands with my friends who have been home equating lifespan with the bit of bombs and bullets loitering in the lightless leirak and leikai.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
I was angry, Mother, you made me look like a fool in front of the folks And I was ireful you made me look like a kiddy when I had already passed Class Twelve when I had already passed the voting age At least you could have waited for me at home At least you could have gone away like you saw nothing But you called me again, your eyes cleared and your mouth slightly agaped and I saw something was significant. Mother, you gestured we had to talk at home I was still so stoned, and was so lost mulling over the hidden meanings in Ougri and the origin of the universe When I did move, dawdling behind you, the likes of a chick following a hen. Hiding your emotions, Mother, you put forward I would need to leave home and go to Zhongphi to become a doctor and go to Tumkur to become an engineer yet I wanted to go nowhere leaving you alone in this land And what I wanted to be was a commando, A police commando, Mother. So I started becoming I have continued becoming, Mother I’m becoming so social.
The Epic from Ougri When we are into them, and into the places of our lasting pursuit, The world suits an epic and we change our figures as isolated dots. The size 5 ball gets
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
As Brobdingnagian as the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, Korea It even goes enceinte, pregnant-with-meaning way when we go there, play there and study there. If not the stadium is naught, Only a commies’ bunch and their broken nukes itch our consciousness and nix. To be is to be comprehended The lone falling tree makes no sound in the middle of the jungle Yet we find a thousand reasons why the falling of a big tree in the middle of the market shook the whole world. For that matter, A million men made the needles A chip can store your history. Some say the road spreads out longer And it’s true when we hit the road of our interest, an epos The world slowly translates into. A note on Ougri An anonymous and undated poetry in archaic Meeteilon, Ougri, it is believed to be written in the pre-Christian era. It is used as a ceremonial hymn and can be heard especially during Lai Haraoba. Ougri is also known as Leiroi Ngongloi Eshei. (Wikipedia) The lines of the first part of Ougri comprise six syllables each while those in the second part has eight syllables. (E-pao.net) I have tried to merge this syllablic style in the above verse! And I have taken the title to signify an awareness—the fierce winds of knowledge that rush toward us when we dig into any known/chosen areas of interest. We grew up listening to the trance-type musical rendition of Ougri, accompanied by traditional instruments early monsoon every year. It had been just another peculiar feature of our culture/folk music. But when we seek its meaning, a score of Googles and Lycoses and Bings is not even suffice to provide us its substance nor its significance.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Chalk and Cheese That we called a chalk That we called a cheese Sit deceptively on the table Showing a shadow of evidence And their deception so green as truly as the words as actual as the reality But nothing remains when Truth takes them to the bin. The local science teacher who teaches Chemistry She would tell reliably the subject’s not about chemicals but the subject’s the language about chemicals. No corporal punishment will make us clutch on the reality’s bald head Tho’ we have the idea how painful it was It was the pain we feel it! A chalk is a chalk that we feel we can write with A cheese is a cheese that we feel we can eat it. Now, there’s no love lost between what we feel and what we see And no more will a chalk squeak And no one will move the cheese. Postscript The paucity of truth,
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
it is found only in arithmetic and trigonometry and algebra In the end, the reality is me it’s the perception It’s all but the self-realisation. Subsequently There is no meaning of democracy in a military state For the rule of the gun is not the rule of the great unwashed Civics textbooks, they were written so that the kids with ceaseless mucus don’t have to shit on newspapers.
Our Happiness Hole Inside the large gallery hall: our chef-d’oeuvre has been drawn on the expressive canvas of the Ideal Man in psychedelic colours and nullity. The square fabric has a hole, with tattered frills, in the centre to add up to its creative finish and we are enjoying putting in our head inside. Inside here, we can even hide from the gods and the giants. And we have found this is the place more cosy than the dark restaurant cubicles This is the spot better than the open fields of the night. We will see not, come across not Anymore, anymore The zero-bulb fuck and its antagonists who had measured morality with a warm squishy condom, found
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
helplessly choking under the coffee table. But we will have the eureka moment now Unrestrained orgy and sheer pleasure. Behind this canvas, with a head painted inside the tail and the body tinged with venom, we will seek all surreal happiness. The grim reality wanders listlessly in front of this picture and just away from this picture and beyond.
Meitei Uchi Nang-gina ama leibani Meegina ani leirammi Meitei uchi, Koonduna leikhrabra nakonduda. Ho Meitei uchi Matam amagi angamba Matam amagi akanba Nangdi koonduna leikhrabra. Amanba school amadagi porakpa bhorra mayam Moreh dagi porakpa morok mayam Churachandpurdagi kang-hallaga porakpa keehom mayam Leire, Meitei uchi, thoklak lo chik-oo laklo. Nahanwaidi afaoba sha saramdai Yengningdabadagi eihakti uchi kalak yoom mei thai Pende haibabu, mayamnadi nakonda leikhare hai Kannade thoklak-u, ngaklo lak-o uchigi mai.
Lai Marakta Mee Amadusu kappi, atoppadusu hallak-e Amaduna amuk hallak-e, atoppaduna amuk kapp-e Amana halli, atoppaduna henjilak-e
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Amana henjillak-e, atoppaduna amuk henna henjillak-e, Chelli akhoina makhoigi marakta, Leppaga chelli Fammaga chelli Uppaga chelli Long ngaga chelli Akhoina chelli Haina humduna Yetta amuk Oida amuk Akhoina chelli Lai fataba anigi marakta Lai khara fattaba Lai khara henna fattaba Fattaba mannaba ngak ngairaba khangdare Khangdare karambana karambano Chenbatana akhoigi ethouni.
Run I’m always on the run Long time ago I ran away from home. Now I run to live and I live to run I run inside the pale blue dot It was so small that I went to South Ex In the evening I ran The roadside park was too large I found myself taking a nap on a stone slab counting the stars Only a dozen of them, the neon sign boards blinded the other dots It is just too far away we see only blinking dots I find there are too many places I see there are too many people The dot is just the mind If not, there are too many things. I ran in the afternoon too I ran to another park in Kilokri
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
I ran, I saw the kids playing cricket I ran, I watched as the sweat bathed me. A day is also gone to give the deads a company Now I’m running again Now I’m running to run again
An Accidental Acronym Kullabidhu loves making money more than he loves making love with his wife, and he digs plenty a money from the underground reservoir, stocked at the middle of the main market; And Angomjao hates the tank more than the feudal minister’s fear of being disowned by dry chappati. “In the tank,” he bemoaned, “we have buried our thoughts… now we have lost ourselves in the pitfall.” Nevertheless they live as neighbours; both of them consorted happiness defines life’s essence, and that sadness filters the meaning. Good things they love, they have it in their own ways. What good a life is, if it is not about the good things anyway; Life’s always in a motion, so do their respective businesses, while their fellow men gallop for charity cases at a rhythmic speed, displaying those of Khori Phaba’s grace on a pony, playing polo Expression they show it in their own way too, in several ways, for the wasted: those who demanded freedom and now who demands only money; and for the ennui that ever looms into the skies In their land, day and night measure the clock. Time is marked when Kullabidhu gets drunk with his riches;
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
and when Angomjao is intoxicated in nothingness Posterity is best left to the wild imagination — they will learn the ways of life when they got here. So few of them, so lucky are they who are secured by those prepared with stolen silver spoons. That so meager! An acronym to describe the whole land — this will be too profane, but the more it is the talk about magic potion to cure the ills galore, the better it is left unsaid Kangleipak’s just a name now; any attempt to imply its historicity means Kullabidhu got his funds from the Taliban and Angomjao’s an outlaw of nothingness who pisses on the wall of the assembly building. That’s ridiculous.
Ebullition Do you have any balls? You have it or you don’t Tell us Do you have the balls to admit we are herded in the fucking frontier? Do you have the balls to admit we are the children of lesser gods? Do you have the balls to admit killing is nationalism of the great union? Do you have the balls to admit nothing matters but the LEP? Do you have the balls to admit the armies have found
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
employment galore? Do you have the balls to admit why you smirk while spoonfeeding the fuckfaces? Do you have the balls to admit the mainland is secured while we drink blood and eat bullets? Do you have the balls to admit taking sadistic pleasure out of wearing those gallantry medals? Do you have the balls to admit the indulgence in colonial legacies? Do you have the balls to admit the stories of rape and murders and disappearance and fake encounters? Do you have the balls to admit the happiness of basking in the wild forest fires of the hills? Do you have the balls to admit you will take the troops back to the mainland when the khagis attack again? Do you have the balls to admit that we have concocted the stories that these are trivial while you build the greater whole to compete with and challenge the America and the China and the Europe? Do you have any fucking balls?
Kom Nungsiraba echin-enaosing, mathou pangthok-hanbiyu Mathou pangthok-hanbiyu yopak-berchaandsingdu Touubikho, leibakto kharaga loona touubiyu
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Leibakto kharaga laona touubiyu. Ngasidi yamkhare potcheisingse akhoina phoomgadouriba Mei thagadabasu lairik tamningdaba angangsingna Meikhet-kerosene pooraga chatkhare loina Touubikho, leibakto kharaga loona toubiyu Leibakto kharaga laona touubiyu. Contractor-ojasu khara yengsingbiyu Pigadaba shen mantiknajaroi, Delhi dagi louthajagani, nijagani, haijarugani. Ngasidi phoomlasi, matamse amuk chonthararoisi Amuk hanna uraroidaba mawongda phoomlasi Akhoi pelle. Pelle okhak pelle. Poongpham-sida, mafam asida Tata gari niphu-yangkhei laklagani Kumon asibu mapung fanaba Maiba maibi chang-ngoi, eiga-bamon amata lakloi Ngasina aroiba numitni akhoigi Akhoigi lai mayam, akhoigi feijom Akhoigi eming, akhoigi wakhallon Akhoigi sana-lupa, akhoigi korfu-kompak Akhoigi chatnabising, akhoigi suningdabasing Maraa yaodabei-yaodaba, loinamak fook-tatlasi Chaoraba kom asida loinamak phoomkhrasi. Tadaba natte, udaba natte Wakat meepham kaya nahandagi “Awot-aopa saba mahak ahakpa cheirak pibiyu” “Meegi lai feijom thoktokpiba mahak warak-watembiyu” Kanadabu hairiba, kanadabu wakatliba Wakatpa haiba waheisida amuk pibiranu ikaiba Poraklo, poraklo fuck, yoobi, karnat, dhuk-thaomei Mayam adusu phoomkhrasi.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Mannaba-Manadaba Mayamgi Marakta Ching ga wangba mannade tam Lairabaga mannade enakhunba Angangbaga mannade asangba Awabaga mannade nungaiba Irilga mannade Nambul Leingakpasing ga mannade meeyamsing Nongmeiga mannade number-four Mannadaba mayamsigi marakta Mannadaba ngak’ ngaikhare Mannaba amata leitare Mannaba haibabu Naosum eseiga mannakhare miraokhol Asibaga mannakhare ahingba Mapuga mannakhare huranba Aranbaga mannakhare achumba Shaga mannakhare meeyoiba. Mannaba-manadaba mayamgi marakta Punsigi wahanthok pibire hingbatana Asibagi lambisu yatkhare echum-chumna Mannaba-manadaba mayamgi marakta Sengdaba-oidabasingna oikhare asengba-aoiba Henkhare loomba matlaga fangba potcheina Mannaba-manadaba mayamsigi maraksida Akhoigi lambi kadomdano?
Money: Different Perceptions When we were children, we saw our future, when we were told we would walk, our heads held high when we could feather our own nest when we would become Man. Now my neighbour, a man of prosperity the notes he always counts them attentively
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
he says, in the wealth lies the felicity and so does he counts on happily and hides behind his safe for security. And an electricity-maker, the richest man of our town, he tells us money grows on trees and he has a plant He don’t mind how many people were fucked when he planted the tree of Postmodern Tech From them he picks up his succulent fruits Life was written on papers. But not necessarily Pointed out one of the eggheads, who also lives nearby A professor who teaches the Evolution of Mankind, he says papers are meant for writing and printing That money should be made in coins to stop forgery ‘With money I get my books,’ he fences, ‘With money I travel to my seminars, ‘With money I feed my family, ‘But money alone, it does not prove happiness.’ And I agreed: Bacon’s Idol of the Tribe it is That deceptive thing and superficial those emotions are those happy feelings that come smiling brimming with pride and prestige from the bank. And we saw there is more money in the house of people with wooden smile And every day it has become a struggle for my family--and ever we get sympathy how we feed ourselves when there are bandhs, We are now fed up of unasked love. The wind is blowing carrying the message there are more weight we can find when we have smiling people at the bank than in describing the elation of finding some sweat-measured tokens or the dejection of not having enough. The world is not enough with no money Money is enough with the world.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
No Rite I am told to wear the imported feijom from Bengal, when they perform the ritual to lave me from the sins that I have committed—as if the white loincloth was so pure like its whiteness. But I would not stop sinning, for I’m more attracted only to the forbidden things in life I am asked to put the garland on; and I am warned not to touch it with my feet or wear it nowhere but on my neck. It is so beautiful that I long to pluck out each flower, rip each petal off and scatter them all over the place so that the beauty is spread out throughout I am assured that the folks would be glad to see me obey: eat when the priest asks me to, and starve when he interdicts me—but I am too high and only want to puke.
Arrival and Departure I had not waited, neither you Yet you brought so many new smiles that crumpled the old sorrows and giggles that tickled us and many new words that had been etched on memories’ marbles. Now the clock is too round for the linear time I have ever found it ticking, tolerating with me, my regrets The door, it is closed now.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Disorientation of the Lost Boy I saw the trace of innocence in memories when I look back on those days, Then out of nowhere the first cigarette came, wrapped with the choice of substances that offered me more quick rush and then the stuffs were everywhere and then the manufactured chemical products and then it was almost the end of the world. But then came my bare-ass poetry In its nakedness, I can relate my life easily, though I don’t know where I came from I don’t know where I’m heading to I’m just waiting for the last shot and I’ll come clean. When the neighbourbood and beyond are suffering from cancer that eats the happiness of our time I resort to things that are available within the close radius of my home. For instance, I watch the weeds grow at the river banks I love their independence, growing anywhere In its appreciation I get stoned and dream about going places, But as I cannot leave with this baggage of violence, I travel around with a figment to each corner of my hometown I cannot simply go away, Yet I find the rhythm in going high. Now and then when I regain my normal senses, I’d have love to read Pacha Many candles had been burnt trying to separate the genius from the alcoholic
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
While I’m myself drawn to rum and whisky and Moojikhul In the darkness, I see more light in inebriety Its light is anyway more natural than the switches and plugs that are put on forcibly to say we live in the 21st century. In the chaos, I’m left drinking more, A toast to our lost generation! Desperate and late I’m always I would take the short cut Never mind any roadblock Never mind the detour I would take a jump on the wall senseless of what lies on the other side of the fence Never mind the thorns that shroud more secretly than how our masters hide their booty When we need an injection of reason I’m left fixing the powder, reminding myself with each killing and bomb-hurling rituals: One fix is too many. A thousand fixes are not enough. In the school I learn Hard work’s the only way But those lessons are meaningless Now the armies have made their camps inside the school campus too Now I count on my persuasiveness and my kinship’s force to find a job Or perhaps I would go on as listlessly and some years later, vanish into oblivion as a speck of dust.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
On a Fear, the World will not Agree Why did you let all of them in, while you looked at me with suspicious gaze that pierced my heart? It was not that I want to be in, It was that I want not to be in the mess. I had searched for the snow what I was shown was water melted out of your buckets of pretense, And I had searched for blackness inside the milk that it was a dope’s effect, I was told I admit my mistake now. But the milk’s already white My conceit cannot make it whiter like a more real milk. Now you have left me again with this water that you have soiled, soaked with every parts of your body, with the pale stale milk.
April Passes by the Shop So many people passed the shop this evening And I was watching Their best evening dresses so apparent; Their legs no different, the saunter-style; Their hands so normal, swaying.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
But none of them had a head As I counted their numbers, one by one, or in groups; As the number of death at home raises, like the rivers of monsoon; As the summer airs come blowing happily; Though the people talked secretly as they gaited. The headless people Their happiness hid above the shop’s shutter while I dream for home when there are fetes, Their sadness hid above the shop’s shutter when I was sitting inside the shop How could I have seen them when the shutter was so low And the shop was one level below the footpath.
Platform Poetry All hues and all shades all noises of our lives the home trains have arrived more multiplied voices and noises the travelling class, middle, lower, upper sideways, left, right, all levels all have a case, waiting for the giant that will take us home take home special gifts with wrappers and I was dehydrated, the summer’s curse and I drank too much and in this cacophony shrieking babies, their colourful mothers, big brothers, their pretty sisters scraggy dirty men, clean shaven gentlemen my oh my Yet so melodious is the common end all of us want to be home in the end.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Press Start for Pressure This is the story the story of the end Either you do it, before leaving Or you do it, after reaching home But in no way, while in the middle of the road while travelling on a bus you can express it. The end.
After the Day the Night was Killed The sun rose, kingly kind Dead the night was And unfortunate it was It missed its own funeral Its own occasion This is the tragedy The stories of the night Never mind, we we will miss it too People condole People leave We just burn down. I saw the lilacs and roses Withered with hokum The young blood The no man’s land Their dead bodies had long gone
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
A long, long time gone Their ghosts live Every river bank. All deceased The day shrinks The onslaught I will write the night’s obituary.
The Thread of Mess We are in a thread of mess. We are bind to the thread of mess A thread binds us Of mess We believe A days’s the night’s departure Yellow’s the red’s fade We are in a thread of mess. We are bind to the thread of mess And we come together And we fight together For the thread’s as holy as Nungjreng Pukhri For the thread’s as strong as our wrong And we believe Light’s the darkness’ absence Gun’s the evolution’s weapon We are in a thread of mess. We are bind to the thread of mess. The scissor of our time Out of grime No preach for the error No preach, yet apparent everywhere Complaints of too much self-medication Bargain life and filthy transaction.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
We are in a thread of mess. We are bind to the thread of mess Bargain life yet lose it all over The fine string of bloody melody We dance The drumbeats of divinity See it in our folly It is pain, the thread cuts.
Koiba Chatpa Gari mataduga Bamon Leikai gi thong-gi khungamduga Eina Tombada hai’, kumnaba Ma’ kumtharagadi thougatpa ngamgani eina Ta’Enao workshop tagi second hand da leijaba eigi scooterna Moan ani-animuk loomlaba akhoinibu poo-thang-ngamdrabada Khekna houna makhol thoklak khibani motorduna turel mapanduda. Tapna thouwi amuk, yotki thong mathaktuda Thoudei amuk, laimai haifet manaba lambifaoba Khang-houdana huinao kharana tunglomdagi khonglak-khi — Bow bow! Bow bow! Khangprek hek khang-ngi Tongkhat ke touramba Tombasu phan laona chong-thakhi. Huinao mayam adudagi machin tongba, maya chouba amana laorakkhi: “Akhoi hui ni, nakhoi kanano?” Kallapna mahakna amuk Tomba romda onsinduna samtharak-khi: “Nahak keidoubagi gari dagi kumthahourino? Nahak keidoubagi gari da amuk tongkhatlibano?” Tangaifadana tamjakhi akhoigi awaba Khangbikhi akhoigi wari, hui oijarabasu meeron lonbanina. Akhoini amuk thouwi scooter, waa amata ngangnada.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Kurak Langtaiba April su yourakle Kalensu loiinarakle Sajibudi yumda leihoure Ching kabasu kaokhare Thajadaba marakta mangkhare Thajadaba ngak’ ngai-khare Tha masingna langtaiba Matamna manaba Khoidou saogatpana ahenba Achumbana aranba, aranbana achumba Tatkhrasanu Chelliba matamgi echel Mangkhrasanu Matamsigi wakhal. Anouba chahi Anouba mai-on
The Sleepwalkers On the way to the Promised Land Deadened are we, the happy sleepwalking people We watch with pleasure Dead animals on the streets, Nudging the folks, gesturing the death of light, the death of everything And play the games, our usual games. Take the air on the streets of Sleepwalkingland our happiness, the sleepwalking gunman stole His weapon he brought from Kunming
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
I was no more affrighted for I walk without my sense I had bargained my sense with some coriander from Khwairamband. An old man was sleepwalking Last he was seen walking uneasily with fifty years of juiceless life dried and cut near the khongban The gunslinger fired at him He fell down, bleeding profusely bloods So amazing that the bloods had the colours of money Then he banged his butt against the man’s head Then he barked all the money were his prize now Then I was surprised how another sleepwalker How he could feel so excited when we are paralyzed with decadence. I didn’t feel anything We are the sleepwalkers We are sleepwalking with money Looting and saving for our posterity Saving for the trip to the Hallowed Land We are sleepwalking with guns Mushrooming, enjoying the death of life. We are sleepwalking with nothing The earth is parched, the air dry, the water too polluted We sleepwalk, therefore we are.
A Sentence on the State of Affairs Alike the clear azure skies, I would love to have a hue of cerulean and be free from all the clutters to have a clean view of the inner-outer atmosphere, and to take a firm stand on things I like and things I don’t like, but I always find that as in the impossibility of the sky to remain as blue as ever — sometimes just gloomily overcast that it is and sometimes the torrential rain that it becomes — my mind wanders in the rhythm of the ever changing shapes of the cloud, though I mean it from its superficial appearance; and it’s a conviction that every day, come rain or shine, I’ll be building up a life accentuated
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
with some essence that I hope will give me unasked inspiration to keep moving forward, even though the sheer absurdities that are attached to the psyche, make my living amusing and equally deadening at times, which again offer ample food for thought on our existence, yet it matters less in the diurnal lives for it does not matter at the end of the day how much we are fed and how much we possess, but rather the state of our mind, the stories of sweet love and the everydayness of life define us and negotiate how we are related to our environments — and when we talk about our surroundings, our direct relationship with others supposedly enhance the meanings that we ever seek in life as we are not an island unto ourselves, as the saying goes, and unaffectedly we find several purposes when we go together with our siblings and friends and kin and others, be it in places of work or home or simple outings for pleasure, however, the saddest part is that the very clouds at our own attitudinal level that obscure us from standing up like the azure skies, become more stormy type; the situation is aggravated when we try to cross the already hostile island from our inner self, and the imminent dangers and wickedness become so glaring when it comes to our directionless social journey, you know what it means to come from or belong to a strife-torn place; a milieu where nothing good ever happens though it is gladdening at times we have so many dreams and aspirations, especially when the weather is fine. P O S T C R I P T This is the longest sentence I have ever written in my life. Inspired by a surreal quest for the ideal beauty and truth, I have composed the sentence-paragraph and am now delighted to have done it with 388 words. Whoa!
New Countries at Every Street Corner When things first started/ New countries there are at the street corners Emotional breakdown and communication breakdown and government crackdown and people were knockdown and a commotion in the town Yet the airs of revolution blow around putting down the dry cyclone of clouds
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
When there is a realisation/ New countries there are at the street corners It is the day of remembrance, in the name of the land and in the name of freedom and in the name of the peace Each leikai, each leirak is a country now What more can we ask from the gods now? The bells of liberty are ringing loud and clear: We are free! We are fucking free now! New countries there are at the street corners Does it sound absurd to you that every leikai is a country? There is too much confusion in this new situation Though we are resilient taking caution, happily all the leaders will be presidents now people will no longer be confused about nationality empty promises will go up in smoke society will be undressed to its bare minimum needs on a new year’s day, we can go to another country for a picnic. And then it was so true, home was where the hatred is We are proud, then we were divided, now we will be in unity all of us in a little place we can call ours. New countries there are at the street corners Everywhere the people are engaged no more in stitching oversized garments for the verdant landscapes but in composing the national anthems, recreating national flags and deciding the national animals and national birds Blood brothers will have different passports And their sisters might become foreigners when they are married We will have so many friends from different nationalities While there are headache and heartache and heartbreak Time will heal everything as days and nights seesaw None matters now but the newfangled freedom.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Interrogation Points How would I cry for the moon, when I had been taught its uselessness and the rationality of war, and the utility of material possession and the futility of making dreams my master? But it was made to appear As if I was longing for the sun in the midnight Though I yearn for the shining face the full moon to illuminate our shadows Alas, the shadows grow longer in front of us, while we stood facing the faint moon, and its eclipse too— its invisibility to exert forcefully that the divide between you and I was lost in the shadow that the broken bridge was visible no more that we could make a new road with poetry The believers of freedom yelled it’s essential to put the heads in derangement, to invoke the noises that kill our sanity to lead the people to prosperity, while they disguised themselves as nonbelievers. And we laugh heartily Without any questions. And the keepers are there watching, like us, while looting us And us, we have to make our ways in this darkness. How would it be if we can have an insurrection abruptly without any clarion call, without any shocking surprise, without any bomb, without any bullet, without any blood?
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
your love makes me your love makes me your love makes me love you more it makes me sleep glad keep away those aches it makes me awake from bad dreams it makes me a sheik of your love it makes me remake torn pieces of our life your love makes me true it takes me to daybreak from the night of solitude shake away take away the blues your love makes me love you more and more
A Short Monologue on the Rational Motives for Owning a Land P R O L O G U E • •• •• •• ••••• •• • • •• • •• ••••• •• •• • • I would have been dead were I not alive I would have been sleeping were I not awake In the celebration of these senses I extol reason A higher animal, reason makes me So I should write down what it is made of what made us, though I can say right away: What light of the day shows us There is nothing beyond the death
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
It’s not much in death either, we can care It’s in between our birth and death, we can care. S C E N E O N E • •• •• •• ••••• •• • • •• • •• ••••• •• •• • • Every morning I worship the Sun-god One of its heavenly relatives, I believe, created us One of the loony gods, in its divine ecstasy, it created us And so do I also see many people praying From the first light of the day; some wants more wealth to indulge some wants more happiness to hide their worries I do trust in other gods too Many of them perhaps made us after a divine disputation My reason, though with an animalistic substandard issue, dare no peep into their ancient discussion But heck, the gods must be kidding! Heck, we have so many human flaws! But hell, I believe for the sake of believing Our horizon ends where the gods’ start. S C E N E T W O • •• •• •• ••••• •• • • •• • •• ••••• •• •• • • The days are so assorted One day I’d love to be the professor of Reason All I need is a fake degree from a fake university All it is needed is to show the reason that I have reason Reason tells me the present is more critical And I would not go faking myself Neither I would go start a revolution But I love revolution equally as reason I love the unsung revolution, in summer waiting for winter I love the insensible revolution that brings fresh springs in April.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
S C E N E T H R E E • •• •• •• ••••• •• • • •• • •• ••••• •• •• • • Reason galore Everywhere Truly noetic It’s all clear when the day progresses My friends say I’m not antisocial Never I yell at people. No murder and killing Epistemological reading Metaphysical reading And private reason And public reason But the absurdity reigns So much formality So much blindless And so much nothingness I’m an animal A logical human being Fight for the land The land is your land -- the reason Kill for the money It is your money -- again, the reason All these reasons prevail. When it comes to the land Our time is a future black hole My mistakes in reason, though bother me not I see the reason in my poetry too When unwanted pessimism prevails with the reasons funnily of being a bad geography of being a symbol for all bad things Fallacy it might be held, yet the writings on the wall are clear. E P I L O G U E • •• •• •• ••••• •• • • •• • •• ••••• •• •• • • So to speak, it’s all personal Within layers and layers of our belief
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
We believe what it is true though we know, not the reason, but that truth is fantasy Alive or dead, I don’t want to reason for the land But when I lost my life A piece of red soil I will own for eternity.
From a Flying Fish Like a lonely fish in the limitless ocean am I feeling in a vast human sea On a speck of dust in an Brobdingnagian creation, Of too many birth and death on this speck of dust. As in the fish tries to break free of the water; unnatural it is, but ever I long to get rid of all, and breathe the other airs that I have never inspired. It is unfortunate: on the dingy seabed of local and global dumps ; On the mid-water level where life is about plundering as much as we can and stealing and snatching as much as we can. I’m bloody fed up of justifying myself our acts; And on the surface of the water, watch the superficial relationship between us as if we love each other as if we don’t love violence as if we are so many thing, when we are just animals. Ah! Water, water, everywhere
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Its density, its volume ever increasing Let me go Let me get out of this water Let me remain an animal But let me just afloat and soar away to the limitless sky. • • •• • • • ••• • •• • ••• •• • • ••• •• • •• • • • •• •• •••• ••• • • • • •••• ••• P O S T S C R I P T ? Hardly I knew that there are flying fishes too. It’s incredible. Oh my goat. I found it while searching for suitable images from a public-domain-photo website. Though the above image is from Wikipedia, which mentions these fishes “take short gliding flights through air just above the water’s surface. Their glides are typically around 50 metres.” • • •• • • • ••• • •• • ••• •• • • ••• •• • •• • • • •• •• •••• ••• • • • • •••• •••
Baby, Buy me a Buy for we buy, they sell for the sell, they put on a sale for the sale, we buy back in the old days a very long time ago, there was a village of simple lives and barter and no socage with the bare essentials, with no shortage surely it was an easy life all a man needed was a beautiful wife the winds of joy blew so rife. soon the people got the sight when the gods cried there should be light since then no beast can resist the man’s might back to the present world move forward with the progress and economics keeping up, now we have 1,000 kinds of bricks
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
building more buildings while we sharpen our tricks more consumption and digestion and excretion big business houses’ domination without brands the world is lost in a web of motion i am high when i buy, i buy when i am high the ads egg on me to go to shanghai and i also need the booze from sekmai right here, right now in this intricate, wicked banquet with the legion of cutlet and omlette and sherbet i need only a peg of chamelei and a piece of fillet. can’t buy me peace unneeded is everything to us so absurd; life’s a circus. great rush for the ticket inside i will hunt with a ferret though it’s not thick, my wallet *Chamelei: A fine country liquor which is as pure as the sweetest nectar
Meaningless Meanings The meanings of meaning are ideal, though limited by language. The scientists of mass and matter see the reason in macrocosm, partly shadowed by the low wavelength of our mind when compared to the vastness of the universe; while the masters of gods and heaven put some light on the shadow with the faith and things like that.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Once on the same high pedestal, the scores of scholars studied the social text on schedule tribes, on the reservation discourse, while a handful of the unfortunate folks attended the show of intelligence. Finally it concluded with a meaning: the meaning of nothingness. On other occasions, it comes as the unexpected December rain that we have to find the meaning —for the rain, all the other similar things and even the dissimilar things and their reason of existence and reminding me of Marx who said, a reason is always there, but not all of them are logical. Sometimes everything is just an illusion. Indeed the meanings are simple for us: eat when hungry, mourn the loss of loved ones; Death has a meaning too, of the meaninglessness.
Leibak Macha, Ei Haire watathi, haidre wa mang-ngi Hourasira yahou houjikpu, sendrang makhon yen makhon kayaga loinana anouba numit amuk yakaire, adubu keidouruni Leibak Macha eihakna asuk nganna hougatlaga; hougatkadabagi saruk manglan kharaga sagatkhige; chariba, thakliba, kappiba, khudingmaksu eidi kathok-khrabani; aduga houbu-houraba yahou, uragani soidana yengningdraba oja, lai, amasung atei leibak-ki macha mayam ama — aduna makha tadabida feijup asi chingkhat-tuna ei, ngeihaktaga chepkhige Hek hougatpada famelda kheini-churuppu leirammadi numit ama houba yajariba Leibak Macha eini; palem ema ebemmana
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
chak tusu loisinbirammadi, chakkhom khara hukchillaga eikhoigi klubki pukhri mapanda yoongba rellingda — sembang na eikhoigi mayai kada, yachang-ngakpada makhel langba makhei yan-bagum — eihaksu emanaba sing-ga yalluba yarabani Nongmagi, nungtigi, toupham thokpa kharadudi touhouge; meena tourakpa thabakta seedha-houdrabadi, makhoibu thana-houdrabadi numit adu nongthi-nongmangbada kaikhiba, nakhiba hakchang sarukta fudhorakpagum faojariba Leibak Macha eihakna kanabu chittharammage, kanabu khut tharamdrage; masigumbasing asibu toudragadi eibu eini esana esabu karam-haina haigadourige Kayam kanna’ bu hotnariba makhoina: daktar, engineer, ukil, oja-nungja; thagatluraga naapal chaokhi-nabani, masa chadana matu choongba makhoina fakhraga Leibak Macha eingonda karibu kannariba; aduga mee ateinasu tounadaba natte — meebu chang-hat-hatpana eikhoigi furupki chatnabini, khunnai amada hinglabadi chatnabising asibu yaorudaba, thugairuba yaba pot natte Makha leikairomgi oja mayamdusu thoraklabadi mee kana amata yengda, nongmagi kummei houba yarabani; yakairol oina Saikul lomdagi porakpa mana-masingdura, Moreh lomgi makup matai-singdura khara tousillabadi penjaradabani; eikhoina chariba nattaba chinjak mayam asi leibak kidamak chajabani — henjinduna sirabasu, soklaktuna sirabasu, sibei-siba leibak ki damak sigadouribani haiduna Leibak Macha eihakna chetna wasakcha-khrabani Nungaibagi, tangdu leitaabagi chang olliba sen-gadu khara leirabadi habi-jabi, hen-ten, karino thabak amatang touge haina khallaklibasi kuirabani, adubu nongdamba manasu tambiramdare Leibak Macha eingonda; keidouruni sigadaba punsini, ngeihak nokni, ngeihak kapni — see’ mangaidana hingba haibabu; touwigumbasung kamandogado amuktang oijarabadi, thikadargado amuktang oijarabadi, gormen’ skoolgi ojagado amuktang oijarabadi . . . Taibangpal asi fagini adubu, mayamna hainabagi matung inna, lan-thumna asengba oiramle eikhoi miyoinabana khanba-ngambagi
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
mahei; masigumba mayam asi khangnaba, Leibak Macha eina thajabadi khunnaigi mayokta leiba mathou tai; toubatabu khutta paiba etaogi, yada hookpa echagi, kutlaobana eigi Haire watathi, haidre wa mang-ngi; kannade makha tarubagisu; kalendana saade, ingthamthadana ingde nongallakpagi matamsidi karibu hairuni, Leibak Macha eingondadi nungaijakhare, matam haiba mahousagi khongleisi angakpani.
We Belong Together How amazing how we assort, we attach in this mess more muddied than the mussiness of our dirty desires that match with only that of the monsoon skies that only long for rain? Our life is the grim, blackness of the lightless nights. How true how tight we are tied together! And you look like so much like me when you look at it that way And take it; I talk just like you talk when I tally all the talks and thoughts with the tinker’s damn for we belong together, we damn together. In this darkness we can see I can criticise as much as you can You can curse as much as I can, —as true as we are made of this land —as high as we can climb the Koubru. For we belong together We are in the same shithole. In every direction we look are the signboards set up with the marks of our time Of lost expression, of dead voices. In every talk that we talk is the same tattle: The meaninglessness in time’s anticlockwise direction
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Fed up of the monotonous click and tick all the time. Nothing’s helped us, We can help ourselves out of the altered consciousness We belong together in the decadence.
Capital Protest Pain and Rambles At Jantar Mantar, people come with banners. Any protest, to any degree, is an art. People come to protest from all over the nation, from Punjab and Haryana and Kashmir and Manipur and Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to protest the heat, protest the hike, protest the hoard, to protest everything under the sun. People come and leave and their suasion, but it’s just a daily function and the burly policemen, if not for their unamusing patrolling, they would watch as yieldingly as the retaining walls, the road divider and others in the locality, and the only thing the police would do is to count the number of people to report to their head office, the number of the people who scream, “Protest is an art of fucking oneself.” The number really matters because we are in a democracy, which is based on the number of people you can spoon feed. Once the trees told me, the asphalt road reminded me: What is really important when there is a huge barbwire between the mainland and a hinterland. We are tired of screaming, yelling till our breath reaches the arse that we have been living in the house of a step mother, that the unity-in-diversity rhetoric is a garden of corpse flowers.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Yet the only thing we need is some shared consciousness of humanity. Many protest forms do exist — it divides, the style becomes more varied because nobody cares. Like a drunkard who, wishing for a change, drinks only at even hours leaving the odd hours, any protest should go for a change otherwise a disagreeable person like me can also feel the pulse of the dutiful people, like the policemen smirking behind the retaining walls of Jantar Mantar, and my ink is drying up. [Unconscious Line Breaks]
No Big Deal Usually I travel across the city on the bright green, bright red and orange buses and bright yellow auto-rickshaws and they inspire me to wear pants and shirts in these colours, for example, a green pant and a yellow shirt, and if I like them, you got no say in it, and what’s the big deal in it? Chuck Taylor has got his name lingering in our minds, when we came out of schools and colleges till now but Moreh is hardly four-hour’s ride from home and I can get so many fake but the same shoes at a price I can afford, much cheaper and also, it’s not the local made but imported products from Malaysia and Thailand and Hong Kong and Cambodia, unlike the beetle shoes made in Kakhulong, so in wearing them, what’s the big deal even if you can get the original piece from Ansal Plaza? Ansal Plaza reminds me of shopping, and shopping reminds me of girls though I don’t mean to be a sexist, and never I endorse the superiority of a sex when the only difference between man and woman is what we wear inside: men wear underwear while women wear panties, and what’s the big deal with feminism and masculinism, when the only animal I want to be is a human being?
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
But a ‘human being’ is an exaggeration, or perhaps there are different types of human being: the wild type, the beast type, the peaceful type, the hardworking type, the doctor type, the engineer type, the teacher type; though I would prefer no type but just the literal meaning of a human being in me, as in the possession of a thinking capability, and it’s no big deal to become a human for we are already born a human being. And at home, a gun-toting thug can come around midnight, when the world is dead, to deliver a demand letter and if resisted to shoot the receiver to death, but there is no big deal in that animal conduct, anyway, for we are animals and there are so many animal-type among us though it is surprising animals can also be human beings. The gods are consoling because no other animals worship, except our Mickey the doggie, who used to howl whenever the priests chanted and the temple bells were tolled a long time ago; but Mickey’s gone and it’s been a long time I have been away from home; the only thing that counts now is that there are many people who are believers, who trust in the nonexistence of gods, and it’s no big deal there are also many nonbelievers in the nonexistence of gods and it makes no difference to humanity. For what really matter are the politics and economics that are interminably mixed to be the tunics of our civilization and that society be damned if it fails in whichever measure it conks out in this derricks of governments and production and distribution and consumption and the only subject that is of vital is the easier-said-than-done thing of having the light of common consciousness, but it is no big deal to become a shithole for that kind of society that fails to function but excels to just excrete. No liberalism, no socialism, no communism, no capitalism but metabolism, as in the excretion in the above society, is quite critical in our lives though not as much as having a nationality to define my beingness, but as a natural process because my nationality cannot be compromised — I belong to a place that belongs to the map of a country, so it’s no big deal that I don’t tick the checkbox asking my nationality on several application forms.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
And back to this room where we are here together, it will be no big deal for you to say “Fuck you for writing a crap, you are simply repeating it is no big deal,” for it is easy to criticize, but it’s alright, I mean, it’s no big deal.
Maladjusted — The Midnight Madness The night’s old But the morning’s so many dreams away It looks it can be waited It’s not following the slow ink’s running dry watching through the gel pen’s diaphanous body Between this night and morning So many of us are hindering The clock’s ticking What is evident is all there, even in the darkness of this hour, the phizog of fucked-up people and polluted places and others: The military is a faggot, cross dressing in unsurprisingly, a faggot’s apparel, and it is clear they are castrated, forbidden to make babies. The revolution is a misnomer, which only clarifies through press releases — it’s not that kind of the gigantic natural whirl But the general feeling rules this hour Every gunmen of the mainland and hinterland should be allowed to fornicate with their guns Gunshots’ inpiration, the shrieking alarm clock must wake up all of us, sleeping, dreaming about easy living and nothing else
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Shall we execute our leaders at one place at one go and cremate them and build a public toilet in their memories or let them go scotfree even after all this humiliation? Or shall we grow Shiroy Lily in the vale? Shall we keep writing lyrics for the leibaklei? Shall we keep feigning we belong to the land of jewel? It is only you and me, who are waiting for the morning It is only you and me, who are feeling it There is no other soul who would come between us If I die, and it is the same thing, if you die, how will one of us narrate the midnight madness and retell how we spend the night, just waiting for the morning? It is only you and me, and there is no flower, no violence, no gun, no money, no army, no gun-toting thugs, no leaders, no, no one but this night. The morning’s so many dreams away But old is also this night, Peaceful sleep.
Yong Choirol Matam amada machin tongba hanubi amana takpirammi Matam amada laiga miga samnarammi Matam amada amuk kainakhi mina akampet ngangmanbadagi Nongmei ama-mam yepladuna makhwangda makhoina hairambadi mikha pondaba madom lepchaba ngamba tangdu leitaaba khunai ama sembani Toubatabu niriba senpham adu mantiknabi-dabani Miraokholaktuda miyamna laoribadi makhutna paiduna makhwangda leiiradi yonjage, yolladi leiijage, thadajage bhot-tusu mirep leitrabasu, yurem thakpa-thaktabagi, wakhal mirang thangbagi warisingduna ama oikhraga Sana konung manungda leingakpasingdi nungairi, Oktaba-oktabi kaya loinaduna, oinajari A-oba amangbana thallaba taibang ama semli
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Ateidi mi natre yong eigi mityengda, aduga hairamlabasu hanubiduna lamdam asida houjikti onkhare lai, angamba-akanba kaya ama aduga miyoiba kaya amasu leire yong eiga chap mannaba Yong eina pambadi mapok sida mi oina poklamdrabasu migi maikhum uptuna mi amuktang onjage, u-sa maraksida chong-chongduna, amuktang oirabasu miyoibani haijahouge.
Take for a Ride to Nowhere We are all made up of stars, nay, steel revving and moving If not for these states of our being we are only as useful as a Moreh quilt in the summers of Delhi. But we don’t care for the land, Moreh or Delhi This land is your land, your land, my master thinking animals. And I’m only a dreamer; the dreams are my reality, even if all the realities are a farce. Come on, Riders and drivers of the land, unite! You have nothing to lose but your balls; Bigger cages! Longer chains! Maybe I’m not a Mercedes Benz but I assure you with my fist clenched: Eat the rich, and yours truly, in every left lane that you are on daily, I’ll make you feel important as the fuel. Let them carry on their prittle-prattle: “The legitimate racket of the ruling class.” And my sensuous grace loves to kindle your lustful nature, And I can carry the believers to the end of the world And I can carry the lovers to their heavens; Loverbirds of the land, unite! You have nothing to lose but your love!
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Back home, back home, back home I can take the heads of the states to the whorehouses on the well-oiled machines, lovely views through the windscreen I can take the kids on the streets to the classrooms “Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.” Embarass Narcissus, put him in the cone of shame For you I would, if you steer me clear of all the filth galore. Ride me, my back is bent, I’m only made of steel; Ride to your destination.
A Free Verse and Some Smell from Last Night I was searching for some poems last night and found them in my flat, in the toilet; the last place I would go to, if not for the first morning rush after a cup of coffee and a fag; But then so smelly they were, lying listlessly as if this is the month of yongchak; so I left them alone, and I felt like a poemless person. An agonising boredom had the emptiness created that I smoked several cigarettes that my ventilator became a chimney With the swirling smoke, came the hundreds of smells. I started smelling a rat Of neglected freedom that has found meanings in music and books and great stories only; When the only liberty I want is to sleep and eat and drink when I want. If, even after all these eons of existence, there was an end -- the happy end to begin with,
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
we would have come up smelling like roses long before Naothingkhong ruled for a hundred years long before the other kings started drinking cow urines. Now, rose by any other name would smell as sweet and did the Zedong guy say revolution is not a dinner party but we have made it a business party Smell so fishy, and it stinks to high heaven all we care for is the fight for survival the fight for satisfying extreme greed, ever smelling blood. Ah well! People have went to the moon. Well. Well. Well. Call me a revolutionary I will build a mansion Call me a politician I will build two Call me a worker of the society And I will smell the biggest asses, that’s how things are The world is so contradictory as in me feeling so conscious in going to bed and so unconscious in getting up. But call me a common man I’ll only smell the poetry, the sweet fragrance of beautiful ladies and the aroma of kangsoi in its simplicity and sniff everything under the sun, though, there is not an end to begin with; Perhaps life’s a continuous, comprehensive evaluation. So taking these farce and things and stuffs as same as the shits that get flushed, in thousands of tonnes every morning, every afternoon, every night So early morning I woke up and smelled the coffee And drank it with a fag on the other hand And I had to rush; Habit, a bit is always there. I got to rush.
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
Maikhansigi Marumsida Maikhansigi marumda loomlee, eihak punsigi marek mahao louri Maikhan asina leiramdrabadi wajei naronda kari tougani kijei | Wanglaba sambal, tharaba fucklang Leiramdrabadi maikhan asi Eidi norok taramba tare Eidi ekai meichak, meihouramba tare | Laori, khongli, oinajari, pennajari channari, nungainari, tounari, chatnari, hatnari-soonari, noksinnari, kapsinnari, ngangnari Amangba marakta poot-thanari Paath-thi komthi lakta iraknari Hing-gai namba marakta namm-nari Hingnabagidamak, chatnabini-hounabini Makhoigi maikhan marumda | Maikhansigi marumsida mangli manglan Punsigi panthungfam ||
On Dreaming in Colours and Light Hadda be the happening should be what it oughta be happening Perhaps it was cursed to collapse, happening not, and it’s only too much dreaming Never it has been so close to all the ideals that appeal The ordeals they are damned from the beginning, and we just kneel to the misdeals while we live and fight with all the damnation, these existence’s salience. Hadda be the red and crimson that bleed and coarsen just tinct lightly and allow other shades, to a little extent, be brightened It’s so bloody cherry but would it be so pristine with green Been so long the verdure has been so unclean. Hadda be the colours colour correctly Hadda be black the black, and white the white but the palette it is
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
of all the scattering, squeezed fucked-up paints and the confused overused brushes. Hadda be the neon light shining everywhere; the shimmering pale blue dot might clear up a bit and we can declare we do have some light to ignite our thought. Hadda be the colours so true, the days be always new. Inspired by Allen Ginsberg Rage Against The Machine Hadda be them born in my generation
When I’m High When I’m high so high on the shots I have had in the hills of sorrow I let myself down, when I’m high, when I look down on the valley of misery. When I’m high, I want to be high as high as the sky and when I’m high I want to soar across the sky singing the songs of freedom. When I’m high, the end of living draws nigh but in this July of my life I sigh the slipping seasons vie with no end in sight; The end belies, stay unchanged all the things thereby The end denies the means. When I’m high, I’m high on anything I’m high, so high on the gunpowders that I smack from the barrels of the guns; so high on the blood that I suck from the bodies of the commons. When I’m high, I could throw up on two
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Dreams and Nightmare
Poetry in 2011
The year that wasn’t
and half million faces and get away with it, when I’m too high I know I can reject the voices of the voiceless. When I’m high I cannot smile on these shining things, I cannot handle these fickle incredible things; I can only say, we live in houses only too creaky in the building of an unknown country. Nothing matters anyway But the heroin, alcohol, marijuana, meth and others. I have found all my friends too, even if the police have blocked the road to our haven We’re marching ahead: we need some more shots, some more pots.
Roots Under Boots On the clash of the passion and things we have drowned in blithely and going back to our roots and the marching terror of the powerful; And us, the wastrels; them, the ruiners. Light, there was a dim light; of the winter sun. The identity thing is best explained by eggheads But we have lost our own stories, we have lost them, ripped to shreds Our roots are under boots we have lost our stories Lost them happily in others’ beauties. Led Zeppelin and the Lamb of God and others; and the hardest shakers and mood lifters
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And our local rock n’ rollers, note by note, play just like them, and make up for the prevailing phlegm. In our high school many guitars came crawling, flying in the skies filled with screaming and howling, moving in serpentine paths of poverty and uncontrolled dreams in every chords that we strummed we started facing the sunbeams. Light, let there be not, but there it was; those who bayed for more were outlaws. And unfortunate it was, the guitar became the first casualty when we first looked into what really makes us what we are. Us and them, not anymore. SECOND THOUGHTS I had renamed this post from “An Ode to the Guitar”, with a slight change in the theme. Can’t help but too impulsive I am.
Monsoon Blues The drizzle-mizzle sings sad songs for me In the July skies lie the unfallen rain chastely In its artlessness has lost the melody how, one time when falling, it used to be a lullaby Splattering on the tin roofs endlessly. Thunders of bullets, showers of blood, the abrupt eerie silence The past is otiose with the wasted memories’ presence Yet the memories are still the present tense In the storm we have not failed to sense Of wretched common existence and cold suspense. Come hither, and see the shower is so erratic while there are dreams about grabbing the happiness basic
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The year that wasn’t
But come rain or shine, the air is always heartsick The only thing that can work now, sure enough, is a little magic Else the monsoon makes life more frantic.
Detergent Power If the clothes be so grimed with unintentional grunge there’s no other way but to wash it And it’s somehow easy to arrange all the filthy clothes by their size and type And the washing, dry cleaning, ironing But for the skank and stain all around us we don’t even have a washing place Collect them, sort them, pile them, purge them especially on a holiday; If only those were that easy. Economics is the essence, the sweet fragrance All I want is a deodorant to spread sweetness Yet some of us came upon like other people in other parts of the world for politics, that Now we smell of stinking blood and gunpowders. When I went to the local grocery store for a fairly good detergent to wash off the stench the owner showed me different brands and all of them had the same smell of profit. The order of the day is disorder Mess up with all the unwashed laundry Strip, scour and scrub the spots Strip, scour and scrub the spots Strip, scour and scrub the spots It is going to be unceasing washdays.
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The year that wasn’t
Cut, Don’t Fry As it was no use running my fingers on my paunch enjoying a bullock-cart-paced life sitting all day at a village hotel where frustrating folks get in off and on taking a break from the bullock-cart-paced life, I decided to go for a change. Finding my place among the mortals of pure entertainment toying with offering a drink to wearied souls I have made the right choice by shifting here in the cacophony of this town life, my comfort zone. Wearied souls they get in every day every night to my Zola drinking den; Time was not the matter but the stories, they would toast to Of alcoholic fathers and run-away mothers Of siblings who ever croon “Police, police, police and thieves, oh, yeah!” Of friends who died of drug overdose Of useless neighbours and useless thoughts. And on hopeful nights the wise would swarm telling the tales of loots they looted of fools they fooled. When old is not the night is when the place got the sight. And the collectors would come wordlessly The reserved battalion collector The commando collector The charlie collector
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The year that wasn’t
and all kinds of other collectors Take the cut, dogs, but don’t fry And all they can let out is a soft moan.
Mondays’ Moaning and Blues A voiceless left A vociferous right, in a slow motion, to and fro the pendulum seesaws, the eerie, scary silence swallows; but in the clamour, I had found a new consciousness around, — on a Sunday when they talked about East Timor about the folklore in a fit of emotional outpour — yet I lost it the next day I was so busy that day I had to go pay my rent pay my electricity bills pay my life insurance dues; please do see all I have were unpaid bills, and I’m far away from the hills, and I’m too unlettered to learn or earn to replace the pendulum, with things like a growing income, somehow I can help, break it anyway but I was late and had to rush for work.
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The year that wasn’t
Khongnote But I’m sorry before I can take my time out for a bomb blast, that now we are having yet another highway blockade. I should have taken my time out... When the ennui sets in—when there is no murder, when there is no loot, when there is no nothing, I’m surely going to miss it. I should have taken my time out.
Written on the Mountain Highway What the things are And what the things are not They make a hell lot of differences. me with my friends; It was the smell of heaven not the smoke from a crematory we had felt when we touched the sky on our ride on the misty mountain roads It was the green of the wild not some filthy scarlet of the dead bodies in the happy and contented landscape we saw it made our heart hopped around crests and troughs It was a great delight the gorge that took our heart down from such a height and not some futile, fearful stories on the front page of newspapers and their stories of rapes and murders life can be so simple; If only the things are what they are but they are not; This makes all the difference.
Written on the Plain Highway On the highway to Lansdowne, I saw Ganga lying under the colourful skies attracting everyone’s attraction against my jealous eyes
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The year that wasn’t
there she was seductively, in her gracious best, her voluptuous body glowing in the day’s old hours when the sun was shining in its last best shot and in a typical thinking of yours truly I remembered Iril I used to call her Irin lovingly but she failed to turn me on failed utterly now even after recalling those many memories of so many nights that we shared together. My life has changed now I read it between the dark lines of the night tho’ I’m still on a highway and when a day ends I would go to one of the whorehouses en route to my endless destination and there is no love now, no hate Just a fine line of blissful ignorance and life goes on and will end not at the highway, unfortunately, but at some riverbank crematorium.
An Ode to the Independence Day the rebels say my freedom to go naked ends at the door of my house the government says my liberty to kill ends at the election booth while in some forbidden abode have humanity and sanity turned reclusive on this independence day, I wish all of you must go fuck yourself. and we would pass comments the universe’s so relative there are reasons we are so anguished there are reasons we are so slavish
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and we would play the usual game the dull games of the plebeian so tame on the landscape so barren on the independence day and the naked lies have raped my freedom — of backbreaking wings that allow no fly — of fleeting clouds that promise phony permanence and I have nothing to depend on on this independence day: freedom is found only in the power’s kingdom liberty is doing things too beastly independence is a dream so far in the distance.
Thawan Haiku: An August 13 Tribute The thawan haiku My tribute to the patriots On August 13th ................................................................................................................ In history textbooks You wrote with your blood and pain For you die, we live _____________________________ You only exist Memories and energies Now we care no more _____________________________ The old BT Park In old days we went with grass Sometimes old men barked _____________________________ Hicham Yaicham Pat We know not where the lake is We know rock at Range
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_____________________________ The cops should be hanged The court says about the fakes Death has changed a lot _____________________________ For the land they die For the land you and me kill When are we living? _____________________________ August 15th comes Two days after the 13th Nothing to bark now. Footnote Thawan The fifth month in a Manipuri calendar BT Park A memorial park in the heart of Imphal. Two great martyrs -- Bir Tikendrajit and Thangal General -- were hanged by the British at Pheidapung, Imphal Pologround, now rechristened the BT Park with a tall staue, on Aug 13 1891. It used to be a great place for smoking grass. I don’t know how it is these days. It’s been long I have been homeless and now I live in a rent. Range / Ranch A playground in Yaiskul, Imphal. We have known it as a popular venue for rock concerts. Hicham Yaicham Pat A graveyard of the martyrs, located adjacent to Range. August 13 the Patriots’ Day of Manipur August 15 I came across this day for the first time when I was hardly seven months old.
Fear Psychosis People are afraid of the police And people are afraid of the guerilla And I’m afraid of everybody. And people love to steal from the government And people love to bitch about other people And I’m only afraid of everybody. I’m also afraid I have stopped being terrified, when the cops frisk me, dabbing their lathi on my butt; I’m afraid I’m no more dismayed, when the guerilla did what they do best most of the time:
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tickling the arses of everyone who don’t have a gun; I’m afraid all of us are turning into swollen anuses. It’s too dirty It’s too filthy Yet I’m afraid I’d ever get clean. The doctors advised I should eat more The teachers lectured I should speak more But I’m just afraid of everybody. I’m afraid to be poor, I would die a poor, unknown man I’m afraid to be rich, they would send me demand letters I’m afraid to be so common a man they would simply kill me I’m afraid to be a cop, they would call me a dog I’m afraid to be home, they would disdain I’m a lazy bum I’m afraid to be an animal, they would call me a man.
That Common Thing There is one thing so common between you and me, between your day and night and my day and night between your life and my life: as in birds and skies have freedom but not as free as the limitless bullets of our homes. The love is what the other things are not What the other things are not, it is Just the plain, old, tender feeling yet so special in its worldliness, as in there are many flowers so special but unusual they are as the Shiroi Lilies and no new day can rewrite its lines and no new lines can rewrite its old days It is what it is It is not what it is not and there will be heartfelt closeness and there will be heartbroken moments.
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But I will climb no mountain I will get you no star from the heaven; The only thing I have is the thing we have We have it so common between you and me; an unproven fact has found new meaning. There is one thing so common, as common as the trodden track; between you and me, between our lives and our death ||
Seasonal Affective Disorders In the new year we have in April with the beginning of the new season And in the time we follow from January, there is something so misleading, as annoying as the Indian stare in various places. On an apathetic cosmic ride, the airs whisper, never say never. In the spring come my feelings in the verdure as fresh as the dead in a hot spot, shot just minutes ago when living is only not dying Seek in the wake of bleak days ahead yet the cycle and the same dead keep coming back. In the season of growing, should life be growing. Unfortunately, not. In the summer half the battle is lost One thousand roads lead to the destination But in the racket of clarion calls, clattrering noises and other thousand wrong ways, have I lost my sanity unconsciously, and have I lost my only mind, And the heat is too much All that a life needs is only a fine retouch. In the monsoon the sweat still sudates
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and the circus of life too hideous: raining blood and all the shades of red reign Crimson skies and scarlet roads and maroon rivers, And storms of bullets and thunders of bombs And wailing and howling as the rain soaks all dry red I long to be on the outside, And swim away from flowing with the tide. In the winter lies a warm spring ahead, while I’m lost in a pursuit of freedom And in cold sleep I foresee the cycles; The same old cycle of nothingness. Yes, in the winter lies a warm spring ahead But I don’t want to live on, and feel fresh like the fresh dead body; Please take me out of this cycle.
Made in Yunnan I bought a gun from Yunnan when I went there to check what it takes to cross the border from my town; and they said I will die of several Chinese ailments if I continue living so close, but it didn’t matter for I was so happy to be there, to be going and I was happy I bought a gun. When I returned home, there was not a single soul in my lifeless town; so I shot at the stones, and I shot at the stars and I was saddened by the fact I didn’t get other things to shoot at, when I returned home.
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The year that wasn’t
Made in Yunnan this gun is, and I’m tired searching for a soul — not to shoot at — but my exaggerated social mindedness; nevermind it, I’m sick of this loneliness and am going away; and if you ever find my dead body lying here, please place an epitaph on my graveyard — Made in Yunnan.
On Feeling Homeless, Yet Again Life’s too ironic; more clear it was when I planned for vacation at home a long time ago; nowhere will I find this enigma but in planning for those holidays in the place I grew up. Sometimes I feel like a vagabond but then I realise I have found my home in being rootlessness. In this plight, I have lost all my connection, and if not for the rare adrenaline rush when I think back, yet I feel so detached. Then I was looking for ways to climb out of the mire; now the very ascension is, I found, the way of life and so, any preceding predicament gets itself lost as the clock ticks forever. Home is where the hatred is. And I didn’t know the line can be read so plain but when the self-acclaimed saviours become the savage, I see new meanings of what hatred is, and I can see so plain the nights of pain will find it hard to see the light of the dawn. More detachment.
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The year that wasn’t
But the memories keep deceiving me: Of my parent telling me I’m better without a home, in some pursuit of some fucking dreams, far away from the glaring eyes of greed and guns; Of many of us attending to the election campaigns, arguing it’s no use chopping just a branch of the big fat tree; and I was high and disillusioned all the time that I wish now I could repossess those kicks rather than feeling at home in being homeless. Memories, memories, memories. But I’m happy to be homeless than feeling at home, where strange beliefs lead the processes and functions, and in every annual horoscope of the land it has been predicted that the cops would kill, the rebels would be spoiled, the government would keep fucking, enjoying themselves, and everyone would be depressed and dejected... — and am I happy to feel at home in being homelessness? Forsaken. Forsaken happiness. Now I have lost my way, my connection. Now it is painful to live without a home even if I drive my point home that I have found a home in a dingy street corner. Now I feel home is where the hell is. Now I feel so homeless, yet again. Now I have fallen out of the mainstream. Now I don’t even want to continue.
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In Defence of the New The end is the new beginning Put a period on the wasted thinking A new start should be the ‘in’ thing And the students start arguing And the teacher took out his ruler Whack, whack he whips the boys And the books burst as in thunder And he yells it’s all in there: there are always rooms for doubts there are always ways of well articulation it is always a waste to see no possibilities. Outside the sheltered classrooms, though, the life of the unlearned lulls the blaring sound of the screams inside.
Short Stories’ Propaganda What is being us, and what is not being us; we are lost for we have lost our plots, the dizzy-messy world of concocted stories, narrated by the All-Powerful Men and Women’s Groups of our time. The tales we need to tell are not the tales we have been telling the world; these tales scripted by all but not ourselves: the master story-tellers who have high hopes if not telling stories, who live life stealing for their wives and children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on; and the original story-tellers of the land, whose stories — filled with the tales of valour in the jungle, and of knack for mixing business with pleasure — all of these we find more interesting, yet our self-narrated stories are fake and inaudible. We must play the main characters in our own stories but they have been playing the main characters in our stories, while we are side-cast, we are downcast — that they have scripted our stories, that they have played our parts; but then, is this why we have so many killings and slaying, when we have no control on the farcical stories, which are more engaging on books and newspapers? It’s time we have to live and play and create our own stories. The end is the beginning. Concluded.
Inside the Big Picture Our life is a pale blue dot, in its scheme we are stumbling over, trying to connect the mess and maze, when the fragments of so many things around us are making the grey areas so black that we feel, so dark is everything but the time of our birth and death when we feel a little alive. The social connection and the
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power structures are too corrupt; on their foundation we are a blunder, trying to find the solution in some utopian ideals; we have also invented gods and goddesses — so many of them divided on the lines of false beliefs — but we have harked back to heaven while we made this place a hell; and when we finally see some light in books and education, these have so suddenly become an economic and financial thing, we read and study for the sake of livelihood. We are bunch of memories; the moment when we get rid of the present moment, we are lost in the past — as we explain about things; as from experience, we plan about; we talk to others as we relate to others — all of these are reply to our past yet our reality persists as I write from my frame of reference, as your read with yours. And I see full of happiness and sadness in me, full of hope and dejection, and you are also full of happiness and sadness in you, full of hope and dejection; and we build our own barriers — I wonder how have we been living together for such long.
A Rendition of Dreams and Reality The days are all days As much as I find when I ‘find’ And my dreams are just dreams, hope is the only hope and the nights are only what they are. The days are more deeper, more than the complications of turning cloudy and having eclipses; The days, they died with my dreams. And I find I was looking for yet there are many things I’m not searching And I don’t seek for the graveyards though I find them in rows along riverbanks. But when I wake up, leaving my dreams in some unconscious state I’m not sure of I realise the dreams are not dreams. but the things in life I miss.
After the First Fag After a Fix Oh! Redeemers and reformers! What you have been trying
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Those morals and examples I need not. All I need are a fix and a fag Oh! Redeemers and reformers! What have I done — you always look at me so suspiciously? Worry not, for me, the hinterland Fear not, for me, the mainland No ideas that a gun can kill by the saviours, No wealth that you would keep for your health, No voice that all of us have it in our silence, But a fix And a fag. Fuck and suck, two words we will only care Have you ever tried, I doubt, puffing if you e’er do it, after fixing? We must migrate to Burma The entire land must be a no man’s land Prison me in an animal cage All the gun holders must die of overdose The nearest drop-in centre is so close The army must be mass-castrated My attention span is 5cm at the longest I have lost my mind When powders flow more swiftly than the streams in wet seasons, I have no qualms about your rules When the only thing I want is a clean syringe, I mind not another issue; on my liberty though, you impinge. Heck! The kick is losing the heat.
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Silent Sounds of Sorrow In the morn when balmy sunlight bathes the sky In the noon when any hunger beats the fast’s dye In the night when darkness belittles my little eyes Only silent sounds of sorrow are all I hear: unmelodious cacophonies of cries and wails; the clamour for consciousness rises — in the so worldly streets of protest in the dingy living rooms for resistance in everywhere my averse ears turn to; And noises there are, and more noises even amidst the silence of midnight and even across the town of the dead and even amongst the light, the noises so dark and even in happiness the noises so wretched; and even if no one is listening. But even in this despair I do see some hope So I walk alone silently, Time ignored rudely. When we go together I hear it muted: The silent sounds of sorrow.
To Leimakhong, With Love Green Lively green Lively living in the land of the dead. Five stars for the generals Five stars for the colonels Five stars for the captains in the land of the dead.
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Your machine guns Your sophisticated ammunition Your gaze that annoys in the land of the dead. Mother India is calling you You, the sons of the soil Every chapatti you miss at home Every lick of pickle you miss at home Mother India cries for you Every day Every year when you are there in the land of the dead.
Please Don’t Include Me In your billion-million things; I have so many issues so pressing, Please don’t include me. And please don’t include me in your dreams of a billion to win a game so trifle a game so religious, the ex-master gave it for free; Please don’t include me in counting your supporters I’m a fan of no one at all I admire only non-living things like mountains, and whisky; Please don’t include me when you say there are one billion people following the hunger strikes and fasts and protests All the time I’m just too hungry.
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Hungry to live a life Thirsty to drink the blood dry I’d include myself if you can say or just push: “Democracy is just a fucking lie.”
Treading Between the Lines In the meridian sun, Blinding is the blazing light, My eyes’ bruised in the brightness, While the world’s so black and bare, So close it’s to the cryptic. Being beautiful and ugly, There is a mark that divides the masked beauty of the grotesque and the ugliness in grace; No beaut nor vile per se. There’s an illicit closeness; The poor and the rich, their ‘tween, Only the sharpest blade cuts The fine line that parts through them is what makes us posh or poor. Everything is in reverse; Your gun that kills me and them My gun that kills you and them What is it that cuts through us, but for sure it’s not our guns. In Koubru and Baruni Lies a division divine While we would dream for heaven Disguised gods have enshrouded What lies between us and them Love and hate, their mean closeness Between them there’s no conflict
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What you love is what you do What hate is not, it’s not love But a sense in flesh and blood. Run through the high and the low There’s a horizontal line of unknown height that tells not of passing and failings but another perspective. From yesterday to this day And from now to tomorrow Back and forward there lies still A history adamant And a future erratic. While the gazelle runs for life the lion runs for living Halfway through them is the line that all things are made up of; Unknown, immeasurable. Birth and death are so nescient We have a fine line of life, We know we live in our mind When the riverbanks are dry Nothing is beyond these lines.
You Got the Things You got the things You got the things, Imphal! The valleys and hills Very hilarious, People living in Alienation and in alien nations, People living in pieces for peace.
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You got the things You got the things, Imphal! Bombs and bullets, Malfunctioning balls and bollocks And booze and the over-sized boobs From all across Seven oceans; So many of them People can have them Throughout their lifetime You got the things You got the things, Imphal! And every one is excited, Peeing in their pants How would— You got the things You got the things, Imphal! You got everything; All the things we need not All of them but the things we need.
Deadly Alive I felt the cable wire on my shoulder blade out of nowhere, it fell from the roof so myteriously as if the invisible gods have arrived finally bringing with them this useless thing: it started moving, winding across my neck it started tightening around my throat, With one strong thrust against the wall I fell down, It cut and pierced as I writhed on the floor
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The year that wasn’t
I was spasmodic, jerking, forcing, clinging to the wire with my bloodied fingers clasping to cut it off, wriggling to save my battered neck. And I had the most wonderful moment in life as I fought for my last breath, choking Death and its shadow I saw just around the corner I was so alive in the congestion, the lingering clogging.
Centre Blues No left no right Smooth forward So far not good.
Easily Mistakable Solace For every minute I stay away from my home I gain one minute of bloodless coup, of living a safe life of bright yellow happy economy. All said I feel more homesick: the withdrawal from never getting to see the golden arch dendrobium on our walls back home, so galore in April. And now it is already October. I walk backwards 5 meters for every 10 meters forward and it makes me well-balanced. It takes me a long time to reach my place from work, though, this is unwilled economy. And elation and desertion, the raw faces of my folks so insipidly show and I notice their spontaneity, leaving behind the stories after stories of our lives, of conflict, of felicity, of dreams, of drunken lives, of queer sexuality, of illnesses, of political fighting, of poverty;
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I cannot help but offer them sweet flowers, though less concerning it is than our imagined stories, for what I’m away is not at all what I’m home.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE Poetry in 2011 Kapil Arambam
http://kapilarambam.blogspot.com/
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Arrival and Departure by Kapil Arambam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
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