"shyma" poems
Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….
Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter guards
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.
We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.
The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.
I am like the faces
In the house of deceased
Sobbing
At times
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.
Sometimes
I am all the faces
In the house of the dead
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.
Sometimes
The wedding house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.
Just like you.
My dear bitter guard,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk?
Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
Of wholehearted love?
Translator - Shyma P
Shyma P : Works in Payyanur College, Payyanur. Translator and film critic. Has translated poems and articles in Malayalam Literary Survey, The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Literature, online magazines like Gulmohar, Readleaf Poetry as well as scripts and subtitles for short films.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 8:43 PM UTC
Your father
Is ordering
Gold bangles
For you
You ought to be glad
The glimmer
In that eyes
When you were born
While wearing those
Tiny bangles on you
For the first time
Are inimitable
I feel envious
Of that bangle
And that world of yours
Without me.
I declare war
With your father
For no reason
Although certain
That I would disappoint as usual
I too had bought
A karivala *
In the third life itself
Sure that you would come
I’ll wear
That
On your hand
On the morning
Of
The fourteenth life
I have preserved the karivala
In saline water
Lest it
Gets blighted
I deserve the honor
Of being the first poet
To have preserved a black bangle
Meant for his girl friend
In saline water.
Translation : Shyma p
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:31 PM UTC
You were talking
About a girl
She laughed
Clinking like anklets
At times
Grew dull
Like an overcast sky
Other times
I strained my ears
To stencil her in me
When a solitary pigeon coos
From the office wall
Am out in the sun
Listening to you
And through you
Her.
At times
You become her
And she, you
There is a you
Who laughs like glass bangles
There is a you
Who is silent
Like a broken bangle
Myriad yous.
We become alone
When we love
I have stood
The sun
Rains
Nights
Deserts
Abandonment s
Forests
Seas
Conduits.
Alone
Alone
I can see that girl
That tree shade
Her solitary sobs
That embankment
Her solo conversations
That desolate stone
Her lonely laughter
What is more agonizing
On this earth
Than to be in love.
Translation : Shyma P
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 1:38 AM UTC
Your father
Is ordering
Gold bangles
For you
You ought to be glad
The glimmer
In that eyes
When you were born
While putting those
Tiny bangles on you
For the first time
Are inimitable
I feel envious
Of that bangle
And that world of yours
Without me.
I declare war
With your father
For no reason
Although certain
That I would disappoint as usual
I too had bought
A karivala
In the third life itself
Sure that you would come
I’ll wear
That
On your hand
On the morning
Of
The fourteenth life
I have preserved the karivala
In saline water
Lest it
Gets blighted
I deserve the honor
Of being the first poet
To have preserved a black bangle
Meant for his girl friend
In saline water.
trans : Shyma p
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 10:53 PM UTC
One Sunday
On one of our many births
We
must become the Pappa and Mamma
of an ancient Nazrani tharavadu.
I will go in the morning
And return with
A kilo of beef meat
With bones
Two kilos of tapioca
And may be also a *** of toddy
From the toddy tapper.
While I slice the meat
You will crush the coconut mix
In the grinding stone.
I will come, now and then,
And wipe my face
In the chatta and mundu
Draped folds of yours.
Go away you shameless man
You will dub
The slogan of a coy mistress.
Meanwhile
I’ll drum quick rhythms
On your buttocks
Graced
With pleats.
The kids will see
You’ll repudiate, with your eyes
With the sun
Our bodies also will get warmer
Drops of sweat
Will make studs
On your
Nose.
With the fold of
My chequered mundu
I will wipe them off.
The sun will grow warmer
The toddy inside
Will simmer
In our bodies
An insatiable hunger will torment.
The aroma of
The beef curry with the coconut mix
That you cooked
Will drift into my nose.
Unable to control the craving
I will pick
Tapioca pieces from it and eat.
The hot bits will smolder my tongue.
“You Glutton”
You will then
Whisper to my ears
By the time I wash my hands and sit
Calling out to the kids
And you, to come for lunch
The 12.30 bell will ring in the church.
From that unexpected
Sunday
Which we spent
Stingily
We will set aside
Some memories
for the next creation.
Trans: Shyma P
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 9:41 PM UTC
The past
Arrives with the fragrance of leaves
The previous life
And
The lives before
I’ve maintained personal relationships
With trees
A tree
Had a hollow
And in the hollow
Was a bird
Who had
A boy friend
I remember
Feeding them
Wheat grains
Once
Why say this now
You wonder?
Had wanted to tell this
To you
All along
But, forgot
A bird
Was squawking endlessly
From a nearby tree
When you had called me
For the first time
Remember?
It was the same bird
Which died
Even after
I fed it
Wheat grains
All my previous lives
I had inquired to the leaves
A thousand times
About that lone bird
Will say tomorrow
Will say tomorrow
The birds
Teased me
Everyday
I was distressed
By that bird’s cries
That had interrupted
Your talk.
Had forgotten
To share that then.
Translation : Shyma . P
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 8:32 AM UTC
Looking through the window
There
A maadatha
A kulakozhi
You narrate
The maadatha
Trails
In the silhouette of
The kulakozhi
The kulakozhi is swift
The maadatha callow
Unable to reach
Anywhere near
The kulakozhi flees
Abandoning
The maadatha
Poor maadatha
You narrate.
How unkind
Can a kulakozhi get?
Tell tales
And then
I saw the picture
In the window square
In my picture
It was the maadatha
Who flew away
Must have had
Enormous wings!
The guileless Kulakozhi
There it is
Hiding behind that wild bush
Terrified
You,
Beside the window
Me,
Behind the bush here
Janus faced
Anguish
With wings
And without.
Translation : Shyma . P
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 8:59 PM UTC
Was driving
To shivaraathri manappuram [1]
With idichakkas [2]
To meet you
One day.
Enroute
To a vow made one life
The two chakka dumpkins
Their smug demeanor
Drove me to chuckles.
Like guys
On a global tour
They
Waved buddies bubye
Babbled on
To the jackfruit trees
On the boulevard
Singing “salaama salaama…”
The jackfruit rap
Boisterously.
I was beside myself
With laughter.
The exertion
Exhausted my cheeks
I stopped near a shop
For a cigarette
Saw there,
Two packets
Of fried chakka chips
Among other snacks.
My chakka dumpkins
For you
Overwhelmed them
They broke into tears
They recalled
Their haughty ride
In a car once
Singing salama
A festering past
That throbbed with
The agony
Of getting torn to shreds
Of getting fried crisp
In boiling oil.
The chakka dumpkins
Were dumbstruck
They stopped singing
And began to cry
Looking upon their sisters
Sister, you have forgotten me!
An utterance from Khasak
Muffled the scene.
Sad at their plight
I held them close
My chakka dumpkins
For you
Forget it honey
Forget it dear
I patted them
Trying to stop their tears.
The chakka fries
And my darlings
Continued weeping
And wailing.
I smoked a cigarette
Went to them
And whispered in their ears
That I am consigning them
To you.
They laughed innocently
Showing their gums
They bid adieu to
The sisters
Promising
They would meet next life
I felt like
Laughing
And crying.
Laughing
And crying
I sang
Salama, salama
Salama….
Translation : Shyma P
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 2:04 PM UTC
Danced yesterday
After a long time
Began
From the toes
Of an Adiyathi
All of a sudden
Your toes
Materialized
In front of me
Your toes
That I wet
With
My saliva
My mind dances
Hands and legs
Join eventually
By and by
Ecstasy
Escalates
Goes berserk
With fits of frenzy
Feet
Are driven to dance
On the floor
On a leg
On a toe
That utmost moment
Thought about you
That toe
Your toe
Appeared before me
True
That I danced
On your toes yesterday
Today my body aches
I want to feed on your toes
And fall asleep
Translation : Shyma P
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 1:22 AM UTC
Dear source of my happiness
When I write to you
I forget words
I forget
I am a poet
Once again
Like a farmer
Who wishes to plough
The whole land
But doesn’t
Even an acre
Who doesn’t finish
Sowing seeds
Even in a cent
Like the many seeds
That don’t sprout
Dear source of my happiness
When I write to you
I fail
More miserably
Than that farmer
Dear source of my happiness
When I write to you
I require
The ink of a thousand seas
But my seeds of blue
Fall astray
Unsow-able
Even in a single page
How many of them will sprout
See
Even my greeting
In this poem
“The source of my happiness”
Is stolen
From
My prayers in childhood
To the Holy mother
Dear source of my happiness
When I write to you
Dear source of my sorrow.
Translation : Shyma . P
Aug 24, 2016
Aug 24, 2016 at 8:41 AM UTC
Past
Is like
An answer sheet
Handed over to the examiner
Memory
Is a helplessness
That cannot be edited
I am helpless
No matter
What you think about me
I am a stone
That has hauled itself
Through muddled waters for long
You might assume that
I am
A garden pebble
Be careful
If you are hurt
I’ll suffer.
translator : Shyma P
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 5:47 AM UTC
Did I tell you
About the poothaankiris
Who never abandoned me
Even when all others did?
They were the ones
Who woke me up today
Don’t know why
They woke me up
Calling me
The names
Of all my
Previous lives
Even I had
Forgotten
All of them
In my ninth
Life
My name
Was Shanmughan
Your name then
Was Lara
You were the daughter
Of the captain
A foreigner
From Portuguese
Who had come
To Fort Kochi
Paravoor
And Paliyath
My job then was
Counting the number
Of ships
In
The harbor
You had come
With your father
Then
To see Cochin.
Even before
The ship with you
Anchored at the harbor
Sea crows began their pageantry of joy
Whole hearted wings fluttered
Across the skies
A pandal was built
Above the waters
One
Of them
Astonished
The kids
By flying upside down
The paral fishes
Splashed around in ecstasy
Then
A ponmaan
Aroused by
The dance of the paral fishes
Dived in and out
Again
And again
In the sky of joy
As I turned back
After picking
A stalk of paddy
That had fallen from a ship
I saw the ship with you
Floating from faraway
Your face
Gazing the world
From the fifth window
Of the second deck
Lara.
The glitter of the thoda
You wore on your ear
That day
Still
Blinds my eyes
Lara,
Feel like seeing
That you and me
Of the
Ninth life
I am
Desperate.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 9:40 AM UTC
In the life
Before
The last
You
Were my murapennu
And me
A shepherd
From a village in Tamil Nadu.
Let’s forget
You don’t remember all that
But then, where is that nose stud
You had?
Translator - Shyma P
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 1:13 AM UTC
I was returning
Home
Yesterday
Along the walkway
Through the paddy field
All set for reaping.
As usual
It was dusk
You know
I don’t go
To the paddy field
Except in the evenings
An evening
Of a day
Suffused with
Sighs, monotony
And unpleasant jobs.
In the middle of
The daily
Skyward incantations
“Whom do I have
To claim as my own”
Got bored
Thinking about
The number of times
I have been doing the same.
You know
That boredom
Makes me miserable
Facing
That ripened paddy field
I lighted yet another cigarette
For a moment
Had plans
To set
The crowless
Heaps of hay
On fire
Imagined
A cigarette
Resembling a bundle of hay
Suddenly
You walk
In front of me
Trance like
Unaware of paddy stalks
Chatting to you
Or the two homebound mynahs
Passing comments at you
A leaf of the coconut tree
Sang a song
About you
You weren’t listening
Or seeing anything
You were the swiftness
Of a deer
Leaping
From one life to another
You were walking
The world expelled
Out of you.
Amidst the tenth puff
In the interval of a sigh
I saw you approaching me
You didn’t talk to me
Or show signs of seeing me
You are about to pass me now
And quite unlike you
You had your hair, ******* and face draped
By a shawl
No, that shawl
Was not violet in color
I hadn’t seen
Such a
Forlorn
And distressed walk
In any of my
Past lives
I realized that
You were crying
While walking
I saw
The seeds of your tears
Fall and germinate
In the walkway of the field
I feared
It would grow
Into a forest
You are leaving
Without a backward glance
My melancholy
Where did you go
Yesterday
Leaving me
All alone?
translator : Shyma P
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 2:07 AM UTC
If you had wanted
You could have been born as my daughter
What is not possible for goddesses on this earth!
Had that happened
Moons would have had to dodge you
Lest you asked for them.
Even otherwise
Who would have liked to
Be caught and made a toy
That green parrot toy
You asked for
Is in here still
Chirping.
My heart aches.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 7:56 PM UTC
Yesterday
I fell asleep
Thinking of you.
Mind had cautioned
That re-remembering
Your bespectacled face
Wouldn’t be easy.
Had felt
Pity too
For its exertions
And exhaustion.
Today when I got up
Couldn’t see you
Where are you now?
What are you doing?
Will we ever
Wake up together
On a grass mat
One morning
Some life?
How many mynas
Would be there
In the courtyard then?
One of them
Is looking for something
In the courtyard now
See?
Let me help it
Find the way to
The next life.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 10:49 PM UTC
You said
Nobody drinks
Or smokes
In your family
I knew for long
You would be born
Before fourteen births
I had learnt by rot
The lullaby songs
For you
What sort of madness
Is this?
A childless aunt
Of mine
Had asked then
Which still resonates in my ears
That lullaby is still there
On my lips
True
Having carried that
Lullaby for so long
My lips
Are calloused
No
No one from your family
Drinks
Or smokes
Hoping you’d come
I became the one
Who drank
And smoke
On behalf of all of them.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 9:18 PM UTC
There is a forest
Not even sun is permitted there
I had my eyes on the place
Even before I was born
I knew
You would come
That’s why
I saved that garland
Made in childhood
With the leaves of tapioca
Till now.
In that temple
Inside the forest
I want to
Put it on your neck
(I always forget
To ask
If I can take your neck home
For a day
I will ask this time)
I needn’t remind you
About the weight
Of a thali
Plated with gold
Do I ?
Heavy hearted I am.
translator - Shyma P
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 1:06 AM UTC
The day before seeing you
Sky
Is unreasonably
Overcast.
Plaintain stalks
Quarrel with each other
Birds go silent
Friends talk
In some other language
When the tea vendor
Asks for change
I give him a pen
When the girl in the office
Asks for the headset
I hand over my mobile
Car’s key
To the beggar
A crow
Scolds me
Asks me
Where have I gone
I ask myself the same
The day before
I came to see you
No
Nothing
Hope
It’ll rain
Tomorrow
The sky
Grins knowingly.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 9:35 PM UTC
Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….
Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter gourds
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.
We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.
The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.
I am like the faces
In a death house
Sobbing
At times
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.
Sometimes
I am all the faces
Of a death house
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.
Sometimes
A marriage house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.
Just like you.
My dear bitter gourd,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk.
Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
of wholehearted love.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC
OK
OK
OK
This is the slogan
I chose
Weary
Of
Telling
Persisting
And imploring life
Many times
Many ways
No, cannot
Don’t, don’t expect me
Don’t go, don’t do
Don’t see, don’t hear
Don’t talk, leave me alone
Its difficult
To reckon
How often
I’ve
Muttered
OK
OK
Let it be
Fists inside
Clenched.
A girl friend
Had taught me so
Last life
Seeing me weep relentlessly
Here
In this life too
You are resounding it
OK
OK
Let it be
Does it mean that
I be alone again?
That
I be a beggar
Next life too?
That I be
Wherever
Whatever
However?
Why did you
Steal my slogan
If you had asked
I would have lend it to you
For a couple of days.
translator : Shyma P
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 1:02 AM UTC
You say that
I am proud
Yes, I am proud
And I’ll continue being proud
As long as you love me
If one doesn’t feel proud
Even after being aroused
By your love
Definitely
There’ll be
Something wrong
With that person.
trans : Shyma P
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 10:22 PM UTC
Today is the day I’ll see you
Today is the day you’ll see me
Today is the day we’ll meet
How I see you
Is not how you see me
How you see me
Is not how I see you
How I see you
Is not how you see you
How you see me
Is not how I see me
I want to see you
And you, me
Some time, some day
Leave that
Have been waiting fourteen years
Yet, how arduous it is
To push through
These one or two hours!
translator : Shyma P
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC
Once, upon a place
There was a fisherman
He had a river
Of his own
He had
Ten or twelve fishhooks
Of his own
And he had….
Are you listening?
So, he had…
A river
Fishhooks
But then....
Listen listen
He didn’t have
Fishes
Of his own
Every morning
He would go to the riverside
Clean the fishhooks
And call the fishes
Beckoning to them.
Soon, it’ll be noon
Evening
And then night.
Poor fellow
None of them
Were his
None of them
Heeded him.
I have heard him
Address them
“Vave”
In desperation
Have seen his
Tear flooded
Fondness
Permeate
The river
I feel sorry
For him.
Translator : Shyma P
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
One day
Will coat the
Brightest corner of the courtyard
With cow dung.
Will draw you
On it
With rice powder
Sometimes, due to haste
Might forget to sketch
Certain details
Surely
A toe to bite on
Hair that sways like a boat
And
*******
With grains measured in a brimming para *
I want to snuggle
Like a baby
In
Its shades
Dreaming of a river
Through which flows love.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC