TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY BIDISHA MUKHERJEE

The One After the Select Love Poems

Yes, endless are our arguments.
The light flickers on and off on the dissection table.
If I mention the azure house, you show me the pitch dark of the world.
If I tell tales of the antelope,
you say, you say with conviction
how its flesh is its enduring enemy.
I drag you into a liaison and lay bare my palms.
I ask you to pour into them all that is.
Wonder why you wince away!
You draw near and tell me, ‘Can’t you see, half the people are zombies, we too…’
Diverted I notice your clothes;
I note the distaste on your lips.
You end up winning, every single time.

Vertigo

I never look all the way down; it’s nauseating.
Those furies and agonies. Urinal serenades. Deaths and marches.
I have fixed a fine place for me.
A fantastic breeze wafts by;
no complaints about the light or the airflow.
Women, like specks of dust, lie far below on the ground.
So does semen.
Let them be…
I’d rather smear on me the pollen drops of the festive month;
that should keep me chic.
Bloodbaths gush by.
I tell myself: little kids must’ve tumbled their paint buckets.
Oh tell me, can one clearly see anything from so high up?

My Mother

God, please don’t make me smart.
May I see no way out of cooking
five-course meals.
May I wipe off slanders even if they are sticky,
like trickling drops of sweat.
May I not make much out of the words like
‘speaking up’ and go back to sleep.
May I be vulnerable.
Don’t make me smart, oh God!
Freedom is lonely, it’s becoming alone.
Its thought ruffles me.
A wee bit of gold and silver décor, as if,
salvages any cage.
Don’t make me smart, dear God.
Like liquids I will flow and in it
will float my life.

Also, read The Newspaper and Other Poems by Nikhilesh Mishra translated from the Odia by the poet and published in the Antonym:

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