ISWAR
BALLAV
The
face has not come
I
have waited many days
hoping for the face to come walking,
hoping for a face to speak to me
in the language of a new sun.
I wait for a face
that may have touched
ages of delight,
worlds of gladness.
Let there be no wrinkles or pain there,
let there be no burning or red flames,
let water flow in brooks and rivers,
let blossoms droop in the greens.
What did I not think?
Into what obscure dreams did I not sink?
What did I not attempt?
Did I not drink the poison of remorse?
Did I not feel the darts of insult?
Was I not scratched by the shadows?
The face is a song,
and did I not write a song?
The face is a mountain top
and did I not climb high hills?
The piece of the sun
I had lifted on my palms
has cooled down.
Why has the face not come?
LAXMI
PRASAD DEVKOTA
Clouds
Children
of the depthless water
we, the birth of summer signify.
With joy our birth was greeted
when everything was clean and bright.
The sun burst into brilliant laughter
and danced and sparkled among the waves.
The mighty rushing winds
were invited from afar.
Our hope was to roam among the stars
our expectations were held high.
With agility we climbed up the path of rays
and filtered through the skies.
The breeze to show the world
wafted us far away
to hills, towns, and forests
a divine display
of mountains and plains
of clefts and craters
barren stretches, gardens
falls and jungles
of tattered huts and houses
mansions and of awesome palaces.
BHUWAN DHUNGANA
Pieces
See
how the coffee house
slowly fills up with stale breaths
and eyes hollow with hunger.
See how it fills up with cold and hot steam
and the heartbeats of forks and knives
every evening.
I wish to sleep, to find a place of ease,
I wish to rest my burden of desires.
I need to reach a far-away place,
I still have a long way to go.
And if there were no brightness
to look forward to,
if I did not expect to see the sun,
how would I walk so far
in the blackness of these long roads.
TULSI DIWAS
Protesting Life
In a fist held underarms,
I squeeze my life’s earnings.
I pull along with the festival demon
a pretension, the life and death stuck to my flesh
tied together by time’s rope and string.
Strands of grass hold together
my days and evenings.
In human eyes sagging water.
Fuel wood is wet, moist monsoon shower.
How did life become a load? A heavy load
of pieces of wood tied together.
How did my days and nights gain weight?
They are an iron weight around my neck,
kilos of my days and evenings.
Or is life a ledger of days and nights. Why?
See the clear river in Lord Shiva’s hair.
Why is my life just a small piece of bread?
Look at it, it is round, this piece of bread.
These queries, they themselves are steeped
in questions, an infinity of wantings,
marching like a line of soldiers.
Ribs, the many ribs, the many bones, the many
ollows,
look at this skeleton of questions.
Bones rise like an Everest of limestone,
like the fat of Madhu and Kaitav demons.
In the eye of emptiness
Kamu drips like their fat.
Each drop is soaked in blood,
the blue blood, of my days.
MADAV GHIMMIRE
I cannot forget
You forgot the magic of your mother’s house and worked in
mine,
you forgot your parents’ affection and gave me all your
wine.
You gave me daughters with all the pain of life,
you looked upon me with moist eyes and died.
Where are the daughters, I am going, where are my
parents brothers sisters?
Love, this is our last meeting, stay here and look after
my children,
is this what your heart was saying, was this your wish as
you lay on the floor?
Was this what you said on the riverside before you died?
I did not ask what your dreams were at the end of your life,
I did not cry, did not ask how difficult it was to leave this
life,
I just looked upon you. You gazed at my face.
What was on your mind when you died?
Tears
did not fall, eyes were full, full of water,
you could not speak, you talked through your eyes.
How did you do it? Your soul has merged with mine,
was this what you were doing as you died?
We used to talk about each other’s death when we
were satisfied.
You used to say, let me die on your loving lap.
You have won, you are fortunate, you are true of heart, I have
lost.
You looked upon me with moist eyes and shut me out.
There was no evil in you, your body was clear and
clean.
You were filled with goodness, you listened to Lord Krishna’s
hymns.
Beneath the skies of night’s clouds, you went to sleep.
You looked upon me with moist eyes and shut me out.
Your beauty and softness will grow dim in time.
Your goodness will be forgotten in this ungrateful world in time.
But I will never forget these moments of love you gave.
On the cremation grounds, you looked upon me with
oist eyes, and shut me out.
BAIRAGI
KAILA
After drinking tea
Today, gathering courage,
I came a-swooning to see you.
Today,
in order to please you,
to
say soft words to you,
I
came a-swinging, walking to you.
Thank
you for the politeness.
Thank
you for the tea.
What
else have I to say?
All
I came to say…. Well, I have forgotten.
Everything
I came to say,
everything
escapes my mind.
Shy
faces in my eyes,
I
came to show you pictures in my eyes.
These
pretty portraits, I came to show them to you,
I
wanted you to see them, these portraits I have of you.
MOHAN
KOIRALA
I have not become a god
Brain
is an open space, a saucer filled with coffee. Mind
is fresh steam floating from a cup of strong tea.
On the table a round planet, fruit of benevolence,
juice of emotions flow from slices of lemon.
So
it is that on the saucer from which I feed
I see a salad of well-mixed worlds.
I take off the garland, it can be fodder for oxen,
put on a shoe, it could be a garland for my foot.
The skies I cannot reach with imagination
is thirsty, I fill her all over me.
Always, on the shoulders of my dusty coat,
she descends, from there grows, I carry her with me.
From here to far, as far as I can see,
I have tilled this dust on me.
And in these pockets, I carry
harvests of soil with me.
Forgetful. I passed this road in the morning,
I did not look. Forgive me.
As I climbed up stairs, I stumbled, fell face down,
and say what I felt on paper. Forgive me.
These are but moments that my eyes have seen,
though I did not wish to see them.
People
have become statues, they are like gods,
I have not become a god, I have failed.
Forgive me.
MODNATH PRASHRIT
In Exchange
This
is not only life, it’s a story.
Why do you wrinkle your nose?
This is the real smell of life.
The
burning grounds have a story,
they have tears and grief.
Even when we turn afar,
these grounds are closer to home.
Even though we believe
that
this is a place of death,
these grounds are a source of our own.
Don’t be afraid of the burning grounds,
you’ll find poetry, stories,
and pots full of emotions there.
The living burn the dead
to show their anger there.
Brave touch fire to the weak
and show disappointment.
Father warms his stomach
on the pyre of his son there.
A brother dries his cloth
on his younger brother’s fire.
These are the grasslands
where the selfish warm themselves.
Isn’t it strange? People burn people there.
People turn their own shapes to ashes.
A father’s skull says, “Son, your sons
will also turn you to ashes.”
The human plays games there.
The human snatches
at pieces of his own flesh.
This is the place
where you can bargain for life.
This is where people are cremated.
A hundred thousand aged people
must have said to the young,
“Look, children,
we are not even taking our souls with us,
we
go empty-handed.”
Uncountable young persons
must have said to those who burn the dead,
“Look, friends,
we are leaving our youth here.”
Yet the human is unchanged,
saliva still drips from the corners of mouth.
These are the fields where they play dice,
put at risk life’s sparks.
These are the beds where people sleep together
and find eternal life.
“Mohan!
Mohan, what are you doing?
Don’t turn the stones on this cremation ground,
what broken face do you seek?
Don’t go Mohan. Don’t go there.
Why do you act in this shameless way?”
I look for my history
I look for the face
that planted the seed in my mother’s womb.
I look for my lost father.
“How can a human
be born without a father?”
I asked my mother.
My mother did not answer my question.
I asked her a thousand times
and she gave me tears,
only tears.
My story is lost in tears.
A son without father.
That is no problem for anyone.
The voice that tells of the lost human
is lost here in these grounds.
This is why I scratch at these graves
I ask my question to the burial grounds
and all night I wait for the dead to rise.
Perhaps the father I lost
will rise up from the grave,
perhaps some unknown ghost
will give me a clue of his place.
Where are the people who eat their friends?
I search for corpses
chewed upon by other humans.
“My pain has crossed all limits Mohan.
My heart split on hearing your story.
Nothing can be held in my heart anymore.
Return and I will find your history for you,
I will find the grave of your history.
Even if I have to make myself
a prisoner for life
I will put at rest anything
that might have happened.
I will find and remove
the source of your pain.
But you must know,
the history you lost is not buried here.
It is flying elsewhere.
It has a body that has breath in it.
I swear on your blood and mine,
it has flapping wings.
The witness to these words, brother,
are your heart and mine.”
I will dig up every grave.
I will find my father.
The God has become great
even though I do not reach my door.
Before I reach my lawn,
he has become enraged.
No one’s conscious,
no one kept their wits.
He rages like thunder,
slaps heads.
Come before me, you eighty-four-year-old man,
I will drop you.
It is the end of my student life,
I will crumple you up like these notes.
I will make you, my father, immortal.
I will be proud to have murdered my own.
Even history will be proud
of this son who murdered his father.
Come before me prepared,
come before a billion people,
I will destroy your black history.
Die on the sharp edge
of your son’s khukri.
Touch the feet of the porter seven times,
ask for moksya, oblivion.
I will offer you to the gods,
I will cut off your head,
I will wipe out your tears
and offer you to the temple.
I will give clean waters
to my father who died at my hands.
I will give your blood
to forgotten history.
I will make a billion
Heaven-dwellers laugh.
This murder that I will commit
will be the first of its kind among humans,
the last of its kind among demons.
I will pick your meat off bones myself.
Your ears may be hungry,
but the screams and calls for help
won’t feed them. The skeleton
I shall lick and clean,
your eyes won’t tire
at their clacking sounds.
I will throw what meat remains
and let the crows and vultures have fun.
I will keep aside and scatter pieces of your meat
so that dogs and the fox can eat them.
I heard from my aunt a long while back,
you beat and dragged
your goddess-like wife by hair.
You killed your butterfly-like daughter.
You ate the hardworking Kaley alive.
You ruined Mohan’s enormous spirit.
Even if I murdered you ten times,
even if I hung you by the rope a hundred times
you would not atone for your sins.
I don’t need Mohan here.
I can take revenge myself.
I don’t need anyone,
I will fulfill Kaley
and Butterfly’s promises.
I will face the accusation
that I am a murderer’s son.
Come to me,
stand before me!
“My Mohan. My sister’s meditation.
The thirst of these eyes may be quenched.
But where is sister,
the sister you loved more than life?
Congratulations, son!”
The fire inside her was getting brighter.
Kanchi’s heart was beating quickly
the atmosphere was scary.
Mohan turned up.
“Wait a moment,
wait for a little while.
You have dug up this grave,
I will also look inside, give me time.
Yes we will kill him.
But let him die differently
if he’s dead, he’s dead,
let him live his death.
Shambhu,
if we can kill,
let’s kill everything inside.
It’s easy to kill what is outside.
How are we to find what to kill inside?
Remember, those that are dead
live inside, we don’t want that.
We have to kill him in a way
his death does not live.
“Whether it has a good history or not,
the grave is still there.
It will hold stories to tell
the stifling world.
It will be a witness to the crime.
History will not speak
if we kill these fields and sands,
it will not flow if we close its supply.
Let us change this history,
for history will not stop counting interest
accrued on this killer’s life.
If we murder,
though we kill a murderer,
a murderer will still remain.
Fire does not burn fire,
we cannot pull down history
that has already formed.
“We cannot bring to life dead ancestors.
The history that is soaked in human blood
will not be cleaned by blood.
The skin of civilization
parched and broken by cruelty
cannot be washed by death’s waters.
Let us not kill humanhood
leave young hands innocent.
Let us not end another statue
that wears a human face.
“In the end, Shambhu
the human needs life, not death,
the earth needs sweat not blood.”
My loved brother
are you now a god?
“Brother, my brother,
I remain human.”
PALLAV RANJAN
At the Villages
Gunshots in the mind
and the dog as white as the sun.
The smell of flowers so strong
where a curtain of skywater
wet us as we run.
So let us run: run for the beans, the courts,
and the slide. Let us live: live to see
the colors change in fading light.
The Hunter will roam soon
and leave us not alone
and we will hide in the blackness of free night
beneath the trees in purple bloom.
So we learned to lean against the breeze.
We learned to lean against the dawn.
We learned to lean against heroes strange.
We learned to lean against the storm.
Turn the bread, the thin layer’s gone,
dig the ground, planting season’s come,
and run to the village and the mossy dam
where snakes birth children
beneath the stones,
where waterflow washes away
human homes.
CHANDANI SHAH
Love isn’t cheap
It is not easy to find affection, you don’t find it every
place.
Love is hard to find, I feel, it cannot be exchanged
everywhere.
Don’t ask me how joyful I was to receive your love.
Don’t ask me how glad I was to receive your caring.
I walked with wet eyes,
my lips quivered like the trees.
Don’t ask me how much pain there was when I left my
family.
You won. How much did I lose? Don’t ask me.
You colored red the love of my heart, with vermilion.
I hid the colors of my face within the veil.
I came to you. How many years have there been? Don’t
ask me.
The paths were new. How many mistakes have I made?
I have lost count.
The new born who introduced me to motherhood,
the caring, the magic of a new life that you gave me.
What have I received? Don’t ask me.
As I count each happiness and pain, what has won?
on’t ask me.
This life is setting. It is a short life. What shall I save?
Everything is yours. “This is mine.” Why should I
ifferentiate?
Leaning against you, how much support did I give?
on’t ask me.
Suffering your pain, how much blame did I take? Don’t
ask me.
USHA SHERCHAN
I am Sacrificed
Once more I suffer
sharp arrows of hate –
they are deep in my chest.
Perhaps these arrows
are a hundred times sharper
than those that fly from the bow of Arjun.
They are a thousand times sharper,
and they are flying fast,
I am hurt by them.
I am shamed by these attacks
from those that are my own.
My loved uncle,
I am your nephew Bhim.
Hit me, and I will salute you,
I will thank you.
Don’t give me a soft bed,
leave me at Ganges River’s bottom.
After many years, once again,
I laugh with an open heart:
I gift you this victory,
I am a sacrifice.
COLLECTIBLES