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Utpal Deka
Date of Publish: 2023-07-08

A Few Poems by Utpal Deka

Beautiful Valley of Dzukou

The wooden bench keep looking

Countless new faces

Crossing by the enormous valley

 

This valley of clouds

Cannot be touched by

The cacophony of rush, slogan and

Melancholy of loneliness

 

Walking on the summit

The star-studded earth

crossing through the cover of cloud

when did it envelop

the Dzukou lily

embraced in its bosom.

 

The way I came back

That is a lovely unseen world

The trees growing with breathe

The ice-cold river

The flock of birds heading towards light

White Jesus

Lost in the labyrinth

of deep shadow of green

 

In the luxury of emptiness of the sky

Where the sunshine changes its hue

That is the world of engrossment.

 

Saga of Garbage

 

The materialistic baggage wakes up

In the cacophony of the crows

The procession of citizens passes

By The facade of the intercontinent

 

They speak to the smooth fingers of the hand-

‘We have split tongues’

 

We stay alive in dungeons

 

The worn out skeleton of a misty life

Would emerge out

on raking up the gorge

 

Breath becomes short

like being inside a closed coffin

 

When does the weary tree lose its shadow

It is our amnesia

House no 23 in Mehrauli

From this house emanates

The earth shattering cinematic shot

 

One after another

35 piece climax

 

Love

Illusion

One complement to the other

 

You give us love

We life

 

What are you asking for

Violence or death?

 

Rebuilding by gathering oneself is love

Illusion lost in illusiveness

 

Every spring falls in love of the singed love

 

Lackluster City

The words making round

Is taking a break

They continue to pass from ear to ear

 

The bird from the other side of the border

Telling a tale of buds and fallen leaves

rolling around people’s lips.

 

The evening market is quivering in breathe

 

Love of the city has rendered its limbs useless

 

The city has

no special eye to have a look

no time to spare to listen to

no dear ones to express its love

The city still exists

 

Whoever has watched pangs of childbirth

Whoever has borne some bankrupt pictures

of flesh and blood

 

Who continues to wait

Forgetting everything

For the prayers of light

 

The birds, the river, the trees

Are still alive

The city still exists.

 

The City of Gods

Before a tree mutilated by

continuous rattling of woodpecker

gets uprooted and topple down

The city embraces its entire agony

 

That which does not have a sky of light

Has for oneself the Earth-God

Our Earth is kneeling down in prayers

 

This fleshy ones chased down by age

Can be impeded by a pain

Where the pain would hum the painful stanza

 

Whose is the pain?

Is it of being alive?

To keep oneself in hiding

or of the living dead son of God

 

Even after all these

a tree keeps alive

Fresh white blooms bloom on the uncaring branches

 

The earthen dolls that wants to be buried

Is like a spring fitted horse doll

That moves on endlessly

The path that is not true

Not the one to discover oneself

This path is of illusion

Where the rock puts on

An armour of happiness

Covering its face.

All translations have been published from Assamese into English by Bibekananda Choudhury

About the poet

Utpal Deka(1994) is a bilingual poet who writes in Assamese and Hindi languages. He is also a translator. He is based in Guwahati. His poetry collections include Kangjin Botahor Japana Khola Sabdabor, a collection of Assamese poetry, Alfaz- a collection of Hindi poetry. He has translated Neel Prajapati from Assamese into Hindi a novel originally written by Anuradha Sarma Pujari. His poems have been published in leading magazines like Satsori, Gariyashi, Prakash and Samakalin Bharatiya Sahitya, published by Sahitya Akademi. His poems have been translated into English, Hindi, Bodo, Punjabi and Tamil languages.

 

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