The document contains four poems by K. Satchidanandan translated from Malayalam. The first poem describes an unwritten poem that has traveled through many poets but remained unexpressed. The second poem describes a cactus that uses thorns for language and defense after its flowers were trampled. The third poem personifies the days of the week arriving and departing. The fourth poem is about an invisible being the poet knows is there like unseen stars or words on the edge of language.
The document contains four poems by K. Satchidanandan translated from Malayalam. The first poem describes an unwritten poem that has traveled through many poets but remained unexpressed. The second poem describes a cactus that uses thorns for language and defense after its flowers were trampled. The third poem personifies the days of the week arriving and departing. The fourth poem is about an invisible being the poet knows is there like unseen stars or words on the edge of language.
The document contains four poems by K. Satchidanandan translated from Malayalam. The first poem describes an unwritten poem that has traveled through many poets but remained unexpressed. The second poem describes a cactus that uses thorns for language and defense after its flowers were trampled. The third poem personifies the days of the week arriving and departing. The fourth poem is about an invisible being the poet knows is there like unseen stars or words on the edge of language.
The document contains four poems by K. Satchidanandan translated from Malayalam. The first poem describes an unwritten poem that has traveled through many poets but remained unexpressed. The second poem describes a cactus that uses thorns for language and defense after its flowers were trampled. The third poem personifies the days of the week arriving and departing. The fourth poem is about an invisible being the poet knows is there like unseen stars or words on the edge of language.
I am the poem no one has written yet. Poetry Will Come I traveled up to We need rice, salt, the fingertips of many poets chilly, firewood; but retreated to the dream we can do without poetry. like unexpressed love as I was without script. Yet poetry will come back like rice, I am not afraid of language the seed of the earth, as long as it has a future tense. boiled and cleaned of husk and bran, One day I will find my words: overflowing every measure a wonder-struck child every granary and godown; will see a sail like salt, unfold and rise slowly the memory of the sea, on a vacant page watering our mouths, under a new star. burning us with pain in order to heal our wounds, (From Three Poems on Poetry) nourishing our roots; 2012 like chilly, (Translated from Malayalam by the poet) the lust of the clay, turning hot our lips, tongues, Cactus breasts, waists, veins and nerves; Thorns are my language. like the firewood, I announce my existence the bones of the forest, with a bleeding touch. their marrow melting sizzling Once these thorns were flowers. burning slow with tiny flames, I loathe lovers who betray. chanting, in a single breath, Poets have abandoned the deserts rice salt chilly firewood poetry. to go back to the gardens. (Translated from Malayalam by the poet) Only camels remain here, and merchants, who trample my blooms to dust. One thorn for each rare drop of water. I dont tempt butterflies,
South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 4 South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 5 no bird sings my praise. Thursday walks in, I dont yield to droughts. silence frozen on its hairs, with the quiet steps of the snowman I create another beauty from the icy cave in the mountains beyond the moonlight, * this side of dreams, Friday staggers in, a sharp, piercing, a shivering hunchback, parallel language his beard grey and hair matted, carrying a knapsack of failed revolutions 2000 * (Translated from the Malayalam by the poet) Saturday arrives riding a coffin, raising her head and screaming Days of the Week in a witchs dark mantle Sunday comes * flying like lightning Sunday retreats, closing behind him opening the golden doors of heaven the heavens door, to retire on the wings of sunbeams. to his dim disheveled little room * to write a poem Monday rises on the days of the week. from hells kitchen with the pungent odour of 2012 the smoke from charred pot of milk (Translated from Malayalam by the poet) * Tuesday crawls in bleeding, from its Invisible dark hole on earth, I have never seen you; its hood beaten and crushed may be I never will. * Still I know you are there, Wednesday swims in like some unseen stars, from the coral reefs of like the first wonder-filled flap the ocean bed, with its of the just-created bird, long tail, sharp teeth and black scales like some half-formed words * on the frontiers of language,
South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 6 South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 7 like some planets, 7 fuming fluid yet. I am a grain of sand and you, the endless sea. 2 Let me multiply and be the earth Your crystal-voice to contain all of you? quickens my heartbeat, like coffee, like pepper, 8 like jazz, like drugs. I tremble all over like the tallest building 3 in a quake-hit city. You are a dripping tunnel You are the oldest of its roads. with light at the end. Split open so that I may I long to get wet tumble down to be passing through you devoured by your womb listening to the songs and open my fresh eyes of the forest-birds into the light of a city that thrill the wind. yet to be born.
4 2012 The scent of how many flowers (Translated from Malayalam by the poet) from your body shining far-away Is igniting my senses? Old Women 5 Old women do not fly on magic wands Let those hands keep moving, or make obscure prophecies their bangles laughing, from ominous forests. shaping the fragile idols of love. They just sit on vacant park benches in the quiet evenings 6 calling doves by their names Who said life is a tree charming them with grains of maize. that blossoms just once and then dries up? Or, trembling like waves This is that moment, they stand in endless queues in unrepeatable, of blossoming. government hospitals
South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 8 South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 9 or settle like sterile clouds lakes, mountains, volcanoes even, in post offices awaiting mail even raging gulfs. from their sons abroad, When the earth was in heat long ago dead. they melted, shrank, leaving only their maps. They whisper like a drizzle You can fold them as they roam the streets and keep them handy : with a lost gaze as though who knows, they might help you find something they had thrown up your way home. had never returned to earth. 2007 They shiver like December nights (Translated from the Malayalam by the poet) in their dreamless sleep on shop verandahs. Misplaced Objects There are swings still In a flash I recall all the in their half-blind eyes, misplaced objects of my life: lilies and Christmases the ten lambent marbles in their failing memory. forgotten under the dry leaves There is one folktale beneath the mango tree, for each wrinkle on their skin. the umbrella left behind in Apus saloon Their drooping breasts the day rain failed to turn up, yet have milk enough to feed the pen that dived from the pocket three generations while climbing the cashewnut tree who would never care for it. on the way back from the village school, the sky-blue shirt remaining All dawns pass in a hotel wardrobe in Riga, leaving them in the dark. the long list of books lent, never returned, They do not fear death, some unredeemed debts, a few unrequited loves. they died long ago. Forgetfulness alone never forgot me. Old women once As I fell in love I began misplacing my heart, were continents. metaphors as I began to scribble poetry. They had deep woods in them,
South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 10 South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 11 Later, looking at the hills, I began to feel John Siddique the sky had misplaced them and the clouds had misplaced the rainbow.
I have recently begun to suspect
Sohni Mahiwal this very earth with us on it has been misplaced by God. In the order He recalls, He claims back: woods, rivers, us.
2006 (Translated from the Malayalam by the poet)
Part I
Izzat Baig (Mahiwal)
I Each moment is the first moment.
South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 12 South Asian Ensemble (Winter & Spring: 2013) 13
