Editors’ Note



Some words in this poem have been detained.


The alphabets are protesting,
their bodies are on fire, which is to say —
this poem is burning in a fire of my own making.
I must, now, relocate and deploy the agents of negotation; my tears,

to put the fire out, or to serve that illusion

and satiate myself with the thought

that the remaining words will make this poem beautiful,
that all the words in this poem are synonymous with each other.
That there must be a comforting kind of conformity in uniformity.


Spaces between these words would mean that this poem has room for refuge but
it doesn't,
Itbecomesabsolutelyimperativetoeliminatethesesecond-classspaces
to expedite the forest fire,
these seeming tears are state-craft, nothing about them is water.



The mushroom clouds over our heads should remind us that everything about
this

is gasoline.



—Bappadittya and Aditya


















Posterity

by Harekrishna Deka


On the bare forked branches

The full moon stands crucified

As in the picture.
The ridges of the house gleam

Like skulls in the moonlight.

Do they come or do they go?

Their heels kick up dust or red ants.
All at once I hear the chorus of hurrahs.

In the open sky

The bullets whiz with glee like a flight of birds.
I feel I am my slave. Only their bayonets 

pick up their days all clammy with blood.
      



Translated from Assamese by Niren Thakuria
Jengrai
by Ajit Barua



A little before it was dark

We fell into the Subansiri

And with a tinful of water from the Subansiri

We washed the bow of our boat.
We are superstitious -

Only,

If our superstitions had been blind without a hole in their blindness!
At night on an islet of the Subansiri

We moored our boat.

(Will the guardian spirit of the islet watch over us?)...

Overhead are the stars

The music of the spheres plays in our buffalos’ bells

And this - is this the terror in the bells

Of the buffalos scattering at the scent of that tiger?
The smell of eddies bursting, the smell of the stars blossoming

The smell of the eddies blossoming, the smell of the rupees bursting!!!
Lying on the bow of the boat

One can see the mud and the stars at the same time

The tiger’s roar, the buffalo bells, the song that mermaids sing

All play together in discordant harmony.
At midnight

At the last frontier of peering

Or, is it in the inner side of my pupils

Two fires come and go... unceasingly

Fire of the will-o’-the-wisp, sentry at the Death-god’s door

Otherwise, at the rising of the curtain -

That perhaps is the fire which will light my funeral pyre.
"Brother fire, be in this my hour merciful"

"Oh! What fire-burnt eyes."

"If you think over it Lilymaai, in this life there is nothing"

When it was morning we unmoored our boat

And

(To me it is seemed all on a sudden)

Two Gangaa Chilanis began circling in the mist.
          

Translated from Assamese by the poet
Do Not Ask Me How I Have Been

by Nilamani Phookan
Do not ask me how I have been
I haven’t ask me either
down the Kolong flows
a young, female torso
 What I was last night
king hermit farmer labour
lover rebel poet
a tiger looking for waterholes
after the kill
I forgot what I was


Do not ask me how I have been
 After all I am not alone
for, even after the last supper
I have not bid adieu
nor could I take my leave
I have not laughed since Auschwitz
nor cried either
 

And where can I go
I forgot where I came from
the day clings on to life
vomiting blood
the bones and bits
trudge along the road
 with wry laughter


Do not ask me how I have been
for dogs in coital ecstasy

in shop-front showcases
at the Bhutnath grounds
the blind Kaali fancies
a girdles of male genitals.


For everyone has the same fear
even the dead
to say or not to say
to do or not to do
to open the door or the window
for, this long wait since then
Fibs lies pretence deceit
Youth cruel kind


Do not ask me how I have been
because it’s darkness now
Now even it flickers
Now even it glimmers
adversity travail disaster
and in their wake
the banner of man’s blood


For in my trousers pockets I carry
two forbidden hands
a bullet reddens in flight
in my bosom
for, it is silence all around
the terrible din of peace


Do not ask me how I have been
down the Kolong flows
a young, female torso
because, for forty-two hours
my corps lay there
on the footpath of Guwahati.


For even now I have my eyes open
even my death stares open eyed
for, in pool and puddle
in creek and lake
fish in shoals glisten
O you, my ambling horseman.

Translated from Assamese by Pradip Acharya










Chanting The Gita I

by Bipuljyoti Saikia



The meaning of this wait itself is the journey, dear Parth 

Actually, you don’t wait here. 



Around you the world moves constantly 

The buds one day turn into flowers and fall, the children 

One day, tying knives on their waists, turn terrible youths, 

The green hills are now furnace of bellowing black smoke. 



The rivers that flow inside and around men one day descend as raindrops 

The raindrops become rivers again, the unlucky birds that migrated 

From their houses return home, the evening shadows of men on the pages of
history 

Becomes longer, the darkness spreads beyond what the eyes can see. 



Oh, my exhausted Parth, the meaning of an indecision like this is travel; 

The endless journey through the flesh-and-blood time 

Inevitable descend: There is nothing to regret, 

This is now your reality. 

The reality is not only hard, sometimes it’s absolutely meaningless 

But since we have no control over the results of our actions 

Since you are just a cause, or in simple words, an actor; 

Let’s continue this travel of this waiting.



Translated from Assamese by Dibyajyoti Sarma






























The World Is My Poem


by Hiren Bhattacharya



Pen is my hammer of the smith, breaking
Beating, I create words
Sharp like a farmer’s plough, golden Sita in the furrow
Like a carpenter’s blade
Cracking the fibre of hard wood, I fetch
Blood-daubed words of experience, like the arrows of a tribal youth’s bow
Piercing is my each word
Grows expansive in blood-flesh-desire
Some of them are egoist like hills
Other docile like rivers and yet others sombre like lakes
Do not obey anybody’s order
Drawn in ocean-rive-mountain, I’m the poet of a vast continent
The world is my poem



Translated from Assamese by Dibyajyoti Sarma

















Poems

by Rafiqul Hussain
(1)

In towns and cities

the tombs are empty

even mouldy skeletons wail again for bread

the situation is not conducive

only the wind heeds

the message of helmeted arms

the trees alone receive

the vaunted chants of democracy

even a bird’s chirp

can shock the shells into bursting

(2)

In towns and cities

the tombs are empty
harrowing of the dead
for banned arms
stripping pregnant women naked
for secret haunts
let’s then dress the country
for vultures and dogs alone
No human voice would ring here.

(3)
As the tombs are empty
in towns and cities
as even mouldy skeletons
wail afresh for bread
as the situation is not conducive

Therefore, for re-peace and re-welfare

for the time being

another silence is the call of the day:

for the time being.




Translated from Assamese by Pradip Acharya 






























































Palestine

by Navakanta Barua


We housed them in prisons

For they wanted a home, 

We killed them for they wanted eternal life

Then bulldozed their prisons into fields of corn
What’s that hand sticking out from the earth?

Other hands will sprout from it ...

And tickle us to death.
             



Translated from Assamese by Pradip Acharya





































Prisoners

by Hemanga Kumar Datta


As confinements go

‘house arrest’ is about the best,

you have, conveniently, your own house

to be imprisoned in.
Jails wouldn’t do too badly either

they are at least somebody’s house
wretched are the imprisoned refugees

they are always shut out.




Translated from Assamese by Pradip Acharya
Acknowledgements

Posterity by Harekrishna Deka is taken from Kabita: The World Of Assamese
Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/


Jengrai by Ajit Barua is taken from Kabita: The World Of Assamese Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/


Do Not Ask Me How I Have Been by Nilamani Phookan is taken from
academia.edu: Modern Assamese Poetry in Translation

https://www.academia.edu/23165948/
Modern_Assamese_Poetry_in_Translation


Chanting The Gita I by Bipuljyoti Saikia is taken from academia.edu: Modern
Assamese Poetry in Translation

https://www.academia.edu/23165948/
Modern_Assamese_Poetry_in_Translation


The World Is My Poemby Hiren Bhattacharya is taken from 

Kabita: The World Of Assamese Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/



Poems by Rafiqul Hussain is taken from Kabita: The World Of Assamese
Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/


Palestine by Navakanta Barua is taken from Kabita: The World Of Assamese

Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/


Prisoners by Hemanga Kumar Datta is taken from Kabita: The World Of

Assamese Poetry

https://www.oocities.org/bipuljyoti/poetry/