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ORIYA POETRY
ABHAYA KUMAR PADHI
THE BORN-BLIND DESCRIBES HIS RAINBOW
Perchance there looms up a rare dark
with muted footfalls of solitude
or an eerie surge from the north-east
and then, for a moment,
the eyes of Born-Blind liven up
and see a rainbow
on the sloping bough of the sky.And,what a rainbow!
Its first shade soused with blood-colour
of the slayed bee-swarm.
In its second shade:
the consent of the Queen-Bee,a visualized shape
of a new Hive yet to be sculpted.
In the third,the shadow of the white breeze.
Sin and slur in the fourth.
The fifth colour: a grotesque void.
The stench of burnt-out kadamba-tree
in the sixth.
The seventh takes its hue from the agony
of the trounced enemy.Such is that rainbow!
It has an eighth colour,in which
Born-Blind sights a well-studded star of another darkness
and the third bank of a river not yet astream.
Translation:
The poet
AMARENDRA KHATUA
REACHING OUT INTO NOTHINGNESS
Say it again,the simple words
won't denote meaning to such banal
meaninglessness,as we know,
the precious waiting is a dignified
entity,the backside of your temperamental
visiting card.Bones have this funny habit,they have to
shed flesh,water down the blood and
have to embrace dust to become dust.
Inevitably our knowledge regarding
despair does never flower into
protected relationship and,it is really funny,that
relationship is like fossilized bone,
once intact,now seemingly meaningless dust
even nostrils failing to acknowledge.One's own silence pesters wayward motives
to branch out and emote in a
stabilised world of unfamiliar shadows.
Say it again,the familiar human touch
can be so monotonous that one will
prefer to stay back,at least knowing that
shadows are after all shadows,if
once can get hurt by absent images,
then knowledge have not reached yet
regarding what harms these harmless
shadows can bring upon.Translation:
The poet
AMARESH PATNAIK
THE STEPS
Self-propelled resolves the fireball--the earth
heaped in the cold storage:
shimmer the two eyes of the fish,
cloud,the dry teats of a canine female,
drinks to the dregs
the dark.
Sex-tear wets the soul.
boiling in winter,rain and cold.God,
the Supreme Lord of Life and Death,
Time has expired:
Who,our own,is left alive?
Heart or sorrow? Crematorium or the Cell?Vasectomy indulged in self-preservation,
test-tube babies keep on taking birth,
hunger digests hunger,
thirst is immortal.Love saturates the bloody balloon,
soul,in its vacuum,
perforce creates the Cleavage and the Pupa--
the family symbols of the bipeds. Pyramids
scan the transformation of form and qualities
of civilisation sans feelings of sex.Its existence will be dissolved,
leaving memories
like those of Dinosaur,Amphioxus,
with biologists alone.
A new leaf of civilisation is opened in the planet
as if a fresh poster gets pasted
on a cinema poster again.
Translation:
Manmohan Thakore
MORNING
Then it will be morning
and birds will sing;
in the polluted harbour
I will anchor to safety
and look at the sky,
when it will be morning.Sirens sound
the call of war
the whole body burns
no light no darkness
no ship no drumbeats
shall I go out to the street?Layers of the dust of sorrow
harden to stone
splitting open that stone
new crops will smile.
I will drink milk from the breasts of the earth
I will kiss everybody's heart
I will distribute the nirmalya of love,When will it be morning?
Translation:
Sitakant Mohapatra
A Varnamala Visualization