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P
O E T
R Y
Aching Void
By Dr Nagen Saikia
1. My Heart Is Replete With
My heart is replete with sweet breathing.
I cannot hoard that exhale for
tomorrow.
Sometimes reality of dream comes shrinking to
my heart
and
flies again taking rest for a while. A string
of sadness blows with the wind
of its
wings.
I keep my heart there and sit alone on the
shore of time.
2. Morning Comes
Without invitation morning comes, so also
evening.
Seasons come one after
another.
Keeping the deferred invitation card of death in my
heart
I open eyes in the morning and
sleep in the evening.
***
An Eulogy to Gandhi in South
Africa
By Hridayananda Gogoi
This, actually is
The first page in my quest for truth.
The turbulent waves of the ocean
Or the white-skinned Firings
No one, of them is obliged
The air of Durban
Is not unfettered even today
The saliva glands do not yield
Upon much wringing or pounding
A drop of honey
From the kernel of humanity.
In the contours of your body
Lying swallowed up in the darkness
Are there no marks left by white nails.
Tourists who come to view
That station of bygone times, recall
Memories of those cruel, tortuous days.
Nearby, the corpse of a bat lie suspended
It met its death
Because two points connected.
If only I could have reached
The two points with a stick.
At times, a sound from a mountain cave
Seems to draw India closer to me
The moss beneath my knees
Are swept away by torrentous hail
On the 2nd of October, some coloured
light glow.
From Petermeredgeberg a procession begins
And at a certain time
Comes to a halt beside me.
I wonder
What do they get
For all that time they spend.
Then
I am troubled by a thought
About the first day of Satyagraha
A single word escapes my mouth ...
Bharatavarsha.
***
Repulsive Sources
By Hridayananda Gogoi
As soon as I open the door, I see
The melted carcasses in the city of wreck
An ocean terror-struck by the cutting flood of
flies.
Time seems to grind to a halt.
As soon as I open the door, I see
Men who have become ghosts, scream
They rehearse for a lull in the war
Scattering red colours on sky-high mansions
Form a pane, they ask...
What has fate stored for us.
Bearing the lifeless bodies of soldiers
The weary horses return.
As soon as I open the door, I see
The ever-growing list of those lost in the war
The tepid warmth of damp soil.
The fishy smell of the pond sides
The dreams of
Where have they gone.
What have died within us today.
The load of endless sorrow
Keeps but weighing more and more.
As soon as I open the door, I see
A face etched in unfulfilled misery
Countless words crewed my lips
But none break free
It appears the ocean is confused
It is in flames and yet mute.
When will that day dawn
When unhindered, the ocean will flow
Unending
Who can ever say,
As soon as I open the door, I see
A procession of smiles.
***
O Lady Moon
By Hridayananda Gogoi
The deepest slumber cannot erase
The picture of Sonai from my eyes
When the thunder and storm cease
In the darkness of the night, arise
The tree of Enlightenment.
The sky was a riot of colours then
The stars dance
Bees' flit about
Sonai askes .... O Lady Moon
Will you give me a needle.
How do I know
Whether Paniram lumbers home on an elephant.
Neither the stars nor the moonlight know
When will the sky slip and fall
But Sonai's questions go on and on.
The tender leaves of the plantain trees tremble.
It feels the stone in my heart has slipped.
And after that I could not speak
As two streams of tears course down my cheeks
The lamps of whose boundaries burn in my eyes
I cannot say
For I know not when
Or the red dot on whose forehead
Shall gleam as the beacon light of life.
Sonai asks me again,
When will you bring me the moon's needle.
How will I say who will stitch the sack
Sitting at the loom,
Wiping the sweat from her brows.
Even the wind cannot say why
The colours have fled suddenly
Why can man no longer touch the sky.
The ladder of dreams keep rising high
The window curtains flutter.
The moonlight is lost, lost.
Yet Sonai's questions never stop.
I know not where the
Warmth of my breast secretly hide
In happiness or sorrow
Sketching a shadowy dream
The moon descends once more
By the nahor tree beside the window.
Then again
Sonai chases it with outstretched hands
O Lady Moon....
* * *
Don't give me Your Address
By Minakshi G. Borthakur
Even the mind is yearning for
I can't go in search of you
I know-----
Still the green is in need of you
Simply sitting in the evening table
You sing
The songs of Galib.
Someone else loves your beloved
Before you------ releasing your lips
You can't say anything.
Still your eyes are quivering
In the eyes of somebody
Those eyes are ill fated
Don't you know?
Don't give the address
If I go there
I won't come back
You know.
If I come back sometime
I will keep the colours of my 'sador'
To leave you in a state of writhing
If I come back sometime
I will leave the brightness of my eyes
To feel your eyes dazzled
If I come back sometime
I will leave the sound of my speech at your door
To make you unsteady.
This way is not to make anybody busy
When you will understand it
You are not going to give me your address
And I can't go in search of you.
***
Confession
By Minakshi G. Borthakur
I started to dress up
Fixed for the prisoner number seven
After passing eighteen years in self exiled.
Until that
I couldn't surrender myself
Before me
I had divided me for the desire of others
I had made me responsible
In the interest of others gain and lost
I had a cry without any hesitation
Only to look the smile at others lips
I was questioned -----
"Who was the accused"
I had identified me
My fingers are destined to me
What sort of similarities amongst all unsimilarities?
At last I was produced before him
Releasing my handcuffs
He saw me carefully
And suddenly the door of his secret cell became open
Where I got the entry swiftly
Giving status of a special prisoner
He saw me from backside
With a soft smile
And extended his hand to my hands
The number of the prisoner is seven
The number of the cell is seven
His table is also just seven feet away
Where lies the list of my crimes
He asked me in a low tune
Why you have killed yourself
He had opened the window of my cell
To make brightened my face
Probably he wanted to keep the image of my eyes
So that whenever he feels any doubt
He will open the door of my cell
He will look me carefully
And everyday just for this carefulness
I will not remain in front of the door
The order is pronounced----
"Produce the prisoner number seven"
I will not submit my appeal anytime
To remain in the cell number seven
To remain as the prisoner number seven
I am now seven feet away
Just from his table.
*****
I Can't Ensure you
By Minakshi G. Borthakur
Please do not want those words
That can’t be given
If given it loses
Words know how to collect grains
How to build houses
In the twilight of the day and night
Can wet a heart
Those unreturned remains far
Those returned loses warmth
Untold words are beautiful
Playing in the eyes like a lamp
Fires in the looks like a star
Please do not ask
Why looks become like
this
A collegiums is required
for the eyes
Because words have no colors
But colors in the lips
Burnish of smiles at the cheeks
Words lose its stand all of a sudden
Because they are very brittle
Grandmother says
Ugly women are beautiful
Because you know how to look
Beautiful are not because
You can’t look at all
Spoken words form a story
Story coagulated in blood, in mud
In the harrowed field
Sprouts are the result of sprinkling words
Otherwise they are growing spontaneously
In courtyard in gateway in road
Hunger roots after trashing grains
Grains tied in hands is meaningless
In the midnight
Mother untied the knot of her hair
While father adores her most.
********
The Silver Fish
By Minakshi G. Borthakur
Like
a tortoise I kept myself
in
How many times the bowed mind had come back
And looked
back
How far you and from whom
Like
others I was a lonely one, at
first
Had no feelings
---
How life could realize the wealth for living
You
have
come
And reduced the long shadow of my grief
Like
the moonlight looking on the currents of deep
water
The sky is combing its
hair
The morning affectionately streamlines the
vermilion
On its head
You
had spread a dream throughout the warmth of my
chest
Like the aayatis pouring water from the kalosi
On the head of the bride under the bey
I
had looked you unveiling a long
veil
Accepted you upside down with a bowed
head
And drank your hengulia at the edge of turned up
hairs
And all of a sudden crossed the long
passage
Of becoming a silver
fish
From a tortoise...
Notes:
Aayatis: Married woman with living
husband.
Kalosi: Pinnacle shaped small water
jar.
Bey: A temporary ornamental bathing platform for a bride or
bridegroom.
Hengulia: A haital colour.
*************
A Swan Came Down This Sky…
By Dr Amrit Barooah
The snowbird flew in, down the river bend,
A ball of snow, white and white,
Floats on the rippled waterfront of
My darling river, Jhanji.
The winged angel mumbled;
'We live on sound, word'
W o r d s!
That jetted out of
The nebulous primordial conch-shell
A tiny gong sparks the words
And those words make creations.
Creation ties all the loose ends of
Light and shades of life.
Therefore,
I would live forever in thousand words of
An eternal sound.
But why white?
Perhaps a silly question asked.
White!
A mix of many splendoured colours,
Solace of many a troubled minds,
Revealation of consciousness and
An abode of all wisdom.
I knew,
My eyes are dim with dreams,
Clogged with white cobwebs,
My autumn blue sky dotted with
Patchy, wooly, white clouds,
Floating aimlessly like white feathers.
If that sound is imperishable,
The words indestructible
Where then,
Lies the thin line of mortal mind
In no nonsense existence?
Therein, I loose my identity
Beyond the anvil of creation.
My musings never end.
As the swansong sets in,
The snowball flew off
Spreading wide white wings,
Flapping the vast dusky sky,
Beyond the crimson horizon
Unto the Tower of Silence.
All white,
Loose feathers floated high as
White specs on wily wind.
All I heard… words, imperishable.
Meanwhile, down the evening below,
An eerie silence engulfed
The deep and dark woods by river sands;
That may dissolve soon, within
The womb of dense white fog
Descending in the night
Notes: " Jhanji, a scenic river famous for its curves, coming
down the Naga hills nourishing Amguri, birth place of Chandra Prasad Saikia
" Tower of Silence, Dakhma, and cremation ground of Parsis where dead
bodies are offered to vultures.
********
The Hayacinth
By Ganga Mohan Mili
I storm my way
With the wind,
Swelling river torrents
Are my companions
Breaking through frontiers
Of many a land
I travel to the infinite …….
My roots shelter
Families of fishes
My breast makes room for
Nesthlings of ducks.
I suffocate crops under my weight.
A display of my strength
In breaking down houses.
I get lose in the bridge I make.
An ancient village
May be named after me.
I swell causing
Great commotion all around,
And like me is swelling
The crowd of violent men …………….
**************
At Last All Rivers Come Back
By Hridayananda Gogoi
All rivers finally return.
A familiar house, enchanted light,
And endearing heart
The river enters into a fresh treaty
With stones and moss, gills and fins
All rivers touch the sky.
Sowing golden seeds
Tilling and harrowing the dear country
The river is filled with words
Rose-boats ply on the river
Dispensing the fragrance of the wild basil
In the valley
The river cocks its ears
Even in the dark
At the absence of human sounds
At last all rivers come back...
* * *
The Hour of Stones
By Hridayananda Gogoi
The hour of stones
Time for hailstorms
The night is dancing frenzied
In the sky
Each star falls on stones
The stones bury the trees
The leaves lose themselves
In stones
The river of the hills
Falls on stones
The words grate
Impaled on stones
Sounds and echoes bristle
The hour of stones
In insensate time
In the portal of the Promised Land
Awe-struck exhaustion
In the clamour of the spheres
Countless pledges are denied
Stone are lightning strikes
Stones are a glasshouse
The entire would of mute living
Is hungry stones
This hour of hailstorms, insensate,
Weighs heavy indeed.
* * *
The Other Season
By Hridayananda Gogoi
Time past
Footsteps beyond remembrance
The importunate eyes
Of a rivalry damsel
Turning cold as a tomb
Snakes slither all around
Whose wails waft down the haunted night
Everything is unaccounted for
No one anywhere says it out loud
Why do the two poles shiver in violence?
Why is the breath stilled?
And time disrobed
The present is dying.
Lean and wan
Are body and mind
Whoever keeps count?
Demonic words fall through innocent mouths
Dusty addresses in the wan sky
Can your love find a home there?
In the land sick with darkness
All futures are stifled
Can the vital sap strive?
And not lose it
Where no love abides
As if that is destiny
This coming and going
This importunate seeking
In times out of joint
In hunger
In the wind
In the intimacy of the woods
Even in times of crisis
Man along is different.
* * *
Luminous Concrete
By Hridayananda Gogoi
The two wheels of a chariot were
Then moving on and on
In the dancing mirror
Beneath the eighty feet depth
Glittered a clayey face
A heart full of green
In the thriving
Pillars
layers of stone sand and cement
Shrouded
History of forty years….
Dazzled in memory, in sorrow
A wrinkled face
Like the Maya civilization of Mexico
Like the plight of Montana
As if in each pore of the skin
An unceasing deluge
In days and nights
And in that way
In the odour of sweat
In the warmth of raw blood
The hazy childhood awakening
All of a sudden had vanished
Wonder in which wild does Usha sit
And counts stars in the bright sky
In the southern plinth 'Tengesia'
Draws diagram of heart
As if reality is for away
As if dreams are for away
Shall I get light at the end of the tunnel
In your mild embrace
Where resonance of aga Bhairavi sounds
At the doors of Radha or Rukmini
The two wheels of the chariot were
still moving on and on
The image of stone
Awakened to the touch of leaves of wood apple and Tulasi
Two courses
Streamed down both eyes….
Ganga Yamuna
As if
The eromeltdown flower
Is blooming
In the gardens of Japan & Hawaii.
Sorrow of the Pine
Once more
The sound of roaring could be heard clearly
The leopard skin of yesteryears hung on the wall
Of the house at Laban wake up
Trailing the scent of bunches of dray Rododrendron
Gathered from the interiors of Mahadeo khola
And arranged at one corner of the drawing room
A pair of forlorn birds
Come down from the blue sky
Then cannon balls of independence were being fired at
Grorieson Ground
Left Right Left Right
Our guests who have kicked off their morning
At the grape yard of Mowbai questions one another
Why it is that nobody now
Finds seed of green trees
At the hillocks of hills veiled with cherry flowers
Crisenthiyams were beckoning the moon
To the valley then
The lifeless stone images are talking
With needle eyes they are measuring the claws of sinners
Who are coming to the church at Nongthumai for forgiveness.
And
The sound of roaring
Eventually
Enveloped the valley
* * *
Dying Roots of a Grain
By Hridayananda Gogoi
For a fistful of corn I
Die from time to time
The time of my death
Whether be it the bright fortnight or the dark fortnight
There is no star in the sky...
People play the game of changing their attire
Sceptically embrace one another
And the faces incline without being seen by anybody
The typewriter goes on top topping till midnight
The song of life drifts from ether to ether
Stars with the sky
Earth with the stars
How much difference is there
What is more intimate than flood
Everything gets lost within a first ever
Countless days are diffused in oneself
Sail of a ship quivers in the rain - streaks of both cheeks
Age of tree gets decayed at the sound of the roaring sea and falling of
meteor
Volume of the earth lessens unceasingly
How do I express the message of the stranger
Rehearsal of the lesson Abhimanyu had within the womb.
Countless sad sighs burden the heart
Those cheerful eyes of yesteryears glitter before the eyes
Still after that....
A dull sky
Ever after the barking jungle fire
Shreded roots of grain all-round
Golden buster of a star for beyond reach
Hey! Won't you see with raised face
How I for a fistful of corn
A still keeping alive with tears
Dying roots of a grain
From time to time
I die from time to time
* * *
Salvation
By Hridayananda Gogoi
The man climbing up the stairs
To the hillock thought
Is there another similar staircase
Upto the netherworld
A staircase
Either vertically
Or parallely
Climbing over which
Life would be a success
Through which the wish-fulfilling gem can be got
Or
Through which staircase the Sun
Comes down to the world congregation
Another staircase
From the hillock
To the land of luminescence
The man thought
How many more staircases like that
Holy recitals of the evening
Drifting from the temple
Seems quite close to him
As if anxiety calamity and evil days
Are not for him
Rows of variegated light all around
Darkness now baffles him no more.
********
The Journey to the
Tracelessness
By Dr. Saurabh Kr. Bhuyan
Those solidified tears and dreams
Disappearing silently from the dwellings in the locality
And becoming traceless ultimately
Amidst the unknown forests,
Never ever they melted away
To flow like a river………….
On the banks of which
The roots of a welcome civilization and culture
Would have gripped the native soil !
I wonder…..
To what extent exactly
The greatness of those limitless sacrifices
Of those dedicated souls
In the journey towards tracelessness
Were really understood
By those untraced solidified tears and dreams
All by themselves too !
Otherwise,
Crushing and depriving the budding flowers
Even from their lives
Who can declare publicly - "We express our sorrows" ?
And those who also claim
To have taken the hands
Of the exploited and deprived natives
In their hands in the journey of life
Now, even the dreams themselves do not know
Which is whose dream !
Probably that is why
Never ever it was inscripted
On any of the projected bombs
And fired target bound bullets
That "Taking the full responsibility of this act
We hereby declare that this bomb
Or this bullet is used
For the progress of this nation and the country"
For more poetry
contact
hridayanandagogoi@gmail.com
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