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Neelabh Sourav
Date of Publish: 2023-03-05

A few poems of Neelabh Sourabh

Buddha

(In the hands of Artist Champak Borbora..)

There is no god in the Poetry

 

If conception is the greatest frieght of zero

Future is the foundation/base of death

Then past must be the darkest one

 

If a warrior is on a sleepless/ever awake symbol like horse

All the irony of peace is worthless

Dazzling ornaments of unornamented Kuchakumbha

Anklet of Adhamarga and

If a stanza of a song is contentment

What is the power of wine that is the frolic of king

Is the depression of the subjects

 

Till now where is Buddha in the Poetry of Antyakhyari metre

In the same reflective/so and so life?

 

A pair of Mynah pecks and sprinkles sunshine dropped down on the ground

Where is Buddha

In the journey of one day started with great happiness.

 

After evening by making four walls against the songs of Crickets

I enter

Closing my eyes

I search for Buddha

Again I die for one day

 

Awaking later on

If I depress

After reading this poem too

Then where is Buddha

 

After a rape

A pair of downcast

breast coat

Buddha or the swans of the Muse/Swarswati

Malted sheath is the uattractive arum or the simile of the hated river

 

In the magical blue of non-existent

The imagery of a poet is sketched in the suspended corner of the third eye.

That's the last law

Readers are howling

There is no Buddha in the Poetry titled 'Buddha '

Where!Where is!

In the blood .In the brothel.

In the guest-thouse .

No where.

 

In the deer-race the turban of the labours stricks the paws of the machines.

In the shelter of a powerful one who is the half-fed reel?Why?

Answer is certain if Buddha is met?

 

Still in love of contentment readers may search for Buddha

 

At the end of all the confusing concepts of occupying countrys

All the Historians died declaring war as the worst thing

 

Smashing the kingly horoscope of a clergyman's sack

A new challenger is in the imaginations of a philosopher

In the borders of the wealthy

Weaks

The bom of infiltration blasts

At the end of all the plunderings the backbone of independence breaks

 

The poet will put an end to his pen/ terminate his pen after the search of Buddha

The poem will come to an end after a few time.

Have patience.

 

The poet becomes the gatekeeper of schools if Buddha is there in the school bags of the children.

No.

 

No one was born to be oppressed/Dalit.

To be servant.

It is sure that someone forced/oppressed at the bigging

All the priests

The philosophers

The scholars

The rulers

Failed

Why for?

Buddha is the East-West of the answer

 

The poet will be in great calamity in not meets

Buddha will know-- at last at the end such faith

Where the poet will go

After a passage in the Digholipukhuri

To the Artist Avenue ?

 

On a wall of the Artist Avenue

Champak Borbora drew and hung a picture of Buddha

In the frame on a magical smoky path

 

Buddha is departing/proceeding..

(Translated from original Assamese by Gayatri Devi Borthakur)

Yesterday I talked with many


There was a time - you talked to me.
Today is another time - I am talking to you.
There was a time - you had been oblivious
Today is another time - I am oblivious

Wheel rotates thus

Yesterday as I talked I did not feel as before
Because you had been in the West - I in the east

There had been a time you were dissatisfied with something
Today is another time something happened
You like something

I am a fallen tree but old

As you cross you can kick me
But on return you can still talk to me

Yesterday you talked haltingly pondering on between
Because you very well know
You have laid a trap
Without letting the lion or the mouse
To get the scent of it
Cautiously
Pacifying yourself

Yesterday
You taught the rule of
Not the light or the ray
But of darkness

Yesterday you knew
You were vouching against yourself

 

Translated from original Assamese by Bibekananda Choudhury.

 

Alternative

 

Who is mightier

Wind or the Earth?

asked Neer

 

The Earth

is a round clod of clay

It hangs in the air

 

Amused and roused

She then made

Some orbs of clay

and kept pelting them up.

 

What are you doing, dear?

I asked her

 

'Pelting earth' she smiled.

 

Yes I can see,

but why?

 

Let it hover over there

If it will!

We need a new earth.

 

Translated from original Assamese by Hasinus Sultan

 

CURSE

I saw a variegated face on your hands
I saw a chequered venomous snake
Eyes bulging
Cheek nose swelled up like the character
in the painting of Van Gogh
Coughing intermittently
I saw an amazing sight on your palms
Magical actor fingers
I got startled on reading
What have you written

How dare you
Making a mincemeat of people
What an astonishing devilish pen I saw
On your hands

 

Translated from Assamese by Bibekananda Choudhury

 

Homeless

(To Ravish Kumar)

 

 

1

 

Once I donated my old favorite shirt to a stranger

The man smiled as if the shirt was so happy to have him as his new owner

The shirt didn't cry for me at the time of departing

It didn't even bid me a goodbye

 

It kept staring at me when I was home

It waited for me dangling it sleeves

For me to put it on.

Though I had been wearing it for so long

Neither the shirt nor the relationship we shared have started to fade

 

That stranger had become the new owner of the shirt

Which I was no longer

He knew how to celebrate owning just an old shirt

He simply owned my shirt and left

 

Just a glance at it from behind

People could say it was me

And now I was sure the man would be mistaken as me by them

2

As such my house is no longer mine once I step out of it

My house becomes alert just I enter it

Everything in my house, my towel, my wash basin, my refrigerator, my pajamas etc

They all relax as soon as I step out

 

I become of my department the whole day

My wife becomes of hers

My daughter becomes of her school

All alone my house doesn't be of its own

I don't be of it the whole time

 

I can roam around being a home

Just because of my house

Without any doubt I give my house my sweat and some relaxation, in exchange

 

But one day I had to leave my house

Where my cupboard used to hold my clothes

The tank held water for me

The bed held pleasure for me

And the mirror used to hold my image

 

The water doesn't need to drain when I'm not home

The bed can take some rest

The mirror can look at itself

 

I had to leave my house that kept waiting till my meal was cooked

My house became of someone else's with the same locks and keys

 

Many may still enter that house mistaking it as mine

3

I become of a new home

'Home' is like a mouse trap

Wherever I am, it brings me back to it

 

Those with many houses

Are rich in traps

 

A shirt leaves my house first

Then the whole house

4

The buyer of my house

Searches hard for me

Just like he searches the rats to trap

He founds the cage but not me

 

I'm not a bait

I'm a homeless

Whose courtyard is full of rats moving impatiently.

 

Translated from original Assamese by Looky P. Deka

About the Poet

Neelav Sourabh is a young poet from Assam. His poetry collections include Uttar Adhunik Gha (2019, Krantikaal Publications), Kathabor Koi Thakibo Lagibo ( Panchajanya Books), Nirannoboi (2022, Sankardev Publication). Neelav Sourabh’s poems have also been translated into English and Bangla and published in different literary publications in India and other countries.

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