The somber even descends
The perturbed alarm of a weary clerk’s libido
In the eyes of the township
A nurse’s infirm inertness from sleeplessness;
In the interstices of the naked upright pines
There’s no sun; the sun’s sensation.
Senseless scribbling … [Read the rest...] “Shillong at Eventide | Navakanta Barua (trans.)”
Krishna Dulal Barua
The Black Girl in Search of God by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
Alighting from a Negro play
Cigar between his teeth
God pronounced:
Let there be light and light
The match-stick set the spring woods alight
Flowers and blood
And the hours of green darkness
Death and agony of the poison-blue sky… [Read the rest...] “The Black Girl in Search of God by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
Dreamer of paradise
Poet of achievement
Would you listen to solicitations
Of acrid tongues?
Would you revisit
To make this utterance:
you’d come but once and left forever
Never again to return!
Erecting a pleasure park
At Rajghat, Barakpore
we … [Read the rest...] “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Does it Come to Your Mind, Arundhoti – by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
On monsoon nights does your poet come to your mind,
Arundhoti,
The fragrance of the afternoon in your hair-knot
Effaced by the damp light
Does it, does it come to your mind,
Arundhoti?
Poetry obscure to the moonlight, clouds, affection, … [Read the rest...] “Does it Come to Your Mind, Arundhoti – by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Ever seen the Sea? | Devkanta Barooah
Ever seen the sea? Never? I too haven’t
Nonetheless I’ve heard of it,
A blue watery expanse where uncurbed waves engulf
The distant horizon.
This heart of mine is blue as the sea, with pain?
Haven’t you seen?
Where waves … [Read the rest...] “Ever seen the Sea? | Devkanta Barooah”
Vision | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)
Throughout the entire monsoon afternoon
My eyes sit upon the plinth
The afternoon sits on a tuft of grass
Beside this plinth of mine.
What’s it, all of a sudden
The flash of green lighting is fixed
On a tuft … [Read the rest...] “Vision | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)”
The Pond | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)
The last showers have just petered out,
Now it’s afternoon
In the woods of the serene body
Sparkled blue and green fireworks
Bright, swarthy!
[The drum-beats stopped
Multitude of Chaotali dances
Spattered giggling
Round the sides of the pond,
Swarthy, … [Read the rest...] “The Pond | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)”
The Red Dragon-fly | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)
The heart suddenly beings to toss about
in anguish
Has one more remained there as remnant
From those fish long kept alive?
Were those dreams alight
In the cluster of vermilion apples
Unreached by missiles or hooked poles?
– the … [Read the rest...] “The Red Dragon-fly | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)”