ANOTHER POLISH FOR MY NAILS
promises and promises
give it a miss
It’s unsure
why
you promised me the moon
and, doted on my nails
the black stain of your promises
I live with the regret
yet another five years
Optimist that I am
you will find me yet again
lining up in the queue
amongst stones and dust
of the rumbling school
roofless from your promises
waiting for the stain
secretly folding your promises
sliding it down
the box of dreams of democracy
locked securely for another five years
is lies and lies and lies
Yet I believed
like a love struck luckless lover
I wish I have chosen
another polish for my nails
SEPTEMBER STILL
August auburn leaves
still fresh in my memory
Yet time has swallowed everything
Debris between time and I
Dreams ended somewhere between a gnarled tree
bursting forth into blooms of frangipani
and a marshy algae pukhri
I looked for a reflection in the pukhri,
a green layer looked back
The month of Mera,
lanterns hanging atop a single stalk of bamboo in the courtyard
Quiet sky and September is still
Dried crisp yellow strands of sharp bamboo leaves
Make a grazing sound against a rare flutter of breeze
which manage to break amongst the groove of concrete.
The lantern always looks so cold a few hours into the night
Oil-less and ashamed
Its brother- the lammei in the hills
Still bright and fiery
Till all dies down in cinders
against the break of dawn.
NOTES
Mera : the month of October in Meitei lunar calendar
Lammei : wild fire or fire in the hills for clearing forest for Jhum cultivation
Pukhri : pond
APOLOGIES
I can no longer provide
the pleasure of plunging
into my soul
and twisting the emptiness within
like strands of solitary entrails
I can no longer
be a vacuum
or a palpable matter
or a strange kind
mutated to accommodate
all that you demand of me
I can no longer
be a sponge
and absorb
blue bruises
and discoloured sperms
The handle is in your grasp
You can still penetrate deeper inside
with your cold steel blades
But my being has overflowed
Oozing out a dark liquid
And I am
As cold as your steel blades
THREE QUESTIONS
Why did you give me
this irreparable world to inherit
Tainted with stains of history
the world is lost to my kind
Your gallant invoking of mere two battles
fought by women
amuses me to no end
for you know not
I live and die fighting
innumerable ones everyday
Why did you give me
your cemented dogma
where subdued tender shoots of green
Struggle beneath
I am older than the seasons
I am the aged clump of grass
Taking root
Irreparably cracking the cemented courtyard
I die and sprout again
Why did you give me
This soft tissue
deftly at my throbbing core
to break and bleed
at first contact
You judge me by this myth
I am younger than your myths
I will melt and mould
genesis and revelation
to a lump of nothingness
and mock the demise of creation
A DEATH OF MY OWN
Of all the things
I wish to own
I wish my death
To be my own
A quiet dignity
Of privacy
Not a grainy picture
in a newspaper
Not a being
ripped from a warm cocoon
Not a mere body
trespassed in life
trespassed beyond life
I wish not for the raging flames
to engulf me into ashes
I wish
a piece of earth
to provide me solace
in its honeyed chest
To undo the poison
This life has fed
For a flower of red
To bloom
From my navel
And a drop of dew
To adorn its petals
For the wind to play
amongst my branches
And carry in its trail
Tales of my brimming passion
For a lover to pluck my flowers
And embellish the beloved
With my petals
With my scent
With this
You will infuse
my death
with life again
SHREEMA NINGOMBAM
BLOOMING
Peach blooms
It is the age of doom
Gone is the elephant’s tail
It is time for disdain
Shangbrei blooms
It is time for carnival
Bunch in the bun blooms
It is time for fallen flowers
Wildfire blooms in the slopes of hearts
It is time to wait
For the one who will never come
BROKEN
I am home and they are still here
These streets still scarred
These hilts still in reverie
Which one is more sore?
The broken strings of your guitar
Or the broken notes of their Pena
This is hour for wounds and maiming
There will be a time for mending and healing
There will be hours for mantra and magic
And I wait for the Maibi
Who feels the meagre pulse on my wrist
And tells the fortune of this land
She tells over my body
The fever of this land
My pulse, the broken throb of our antique drum
My bosom, the angst of a missed progeny
My forehead, the warmth of a fresh pyre
The malady of this land is mine
This home gave us everything
A corner to live and die
A corner to croon and sigh
Though it could never give a tiny corner
To rest at long last
Broken bones of our hearts
NOTES
Pena: an indigenous stringed musical instrument
A NEW HOUSE IN A NEW COUNTRY
He said he will build a farm house
I said I will give him the land
He said it will be called ‘liberation zone’
‘Man, Come there is dustbin you can put down the gun
Come have a drink, there are bottles you can carry on’
Man can lay down guns and liberate himself
What shall a woman lay down to liberate herself?
Yes, he remembers the story I read
A new house in a new country
Made of windows
Through which we watch together
Beyond the beyond,
Horizon after horizon, sunset after sunset
Tune after tune… after you are back.
You and I shall walk again on the wet fields
With a grotesque aluminium bucket to pick snails
Mossy with years of hibernation
Like seasoned revolutionaries
You and I shall walk again on evening lanes
Across that drowsy villa
Your thumb paints the colour of nongjabi
On my lips
From the shades of western vista
Will there be words left?
Will there be time that betrays?
He will love my old smile
Like he loves the old wine
Brewed with Sekmai water
NOTES
Nongjabi : the colour of sunset in the evening clouds.
Sekmai : a village through which Sekmai Turel (river) runs
TO MY BELOVED
The moment you dethrone
That goddess in your heart
And replace it with me
Allow me to know
Let me taste it with a vengeance
The day when you wish to say
‘Let’s go home’
I am standing by
Ready to leave everything aside
To set forth hand in hand
When you want to let loose yourself
And swim in my wave
When you want to drown yourself
In the depth of me
Drunk with me
Tell me
But never ask me where I go
In the midst of dark nights
Never ask me what I metamorphosed into
In the full moon light
Never ask me why
I vanish in those sullen evenings
Never ask me to lock my doors
You never know when my wings burst forth
Never ask me lo bind my hair
For my comrades trace me through its scent
My beloved!
Never ask me my revelation.
CHAOBA PHURITSHABAM
FRUITS OF YOUR TASTE
Some has more curves
Some looks fair and attractive
Welcome to the market of fruits
You have the choice to hold and weigh
You can just lift and taste its juices
How far the fruits can cry of your misdeeds?
Welcome to the market of fruits
Some are like your favourite apple
Some looks like your juicy orange
You have choices in front of you
Apples, oranges, grapes,
Choose the one of your own
Till the time market is open for you
You have the choice to hold and weigh
You can just lift and taste its juices
How far the fruits can cry of your misdeeds?
WHEN MOIRANG KHAMBA MET KRISHNA
He must be shouting for his roots,
He must be craving for his tribe,
He must be asking machem Khamnu,
Where was he born?
Where he belonged?
Mathura or Moirang?
I dreamt of pure love
Like that of Khamba -Thoibi
The eternal sacrifice of the two lovers
I listened Moirang – Parva
To get a glimpse of their tale
I weep for Khamnu
Oh! how she suffered
Oh! how she nurtured Khamba
I crave for the courage of Thoibi
Who defied decrees for Khamba
Outwitting Nongban
But it was a famous poet
Who bewildered me
In another myth
Quite afar from what I heard
I remember my grandma telling me
The story of Khamba-Thoibi
I still am mesmerised
With the beauty of Thoibi
The epic poet
Retold the tale
How Khamba met Krishna
How they played Ras Lila
Krishna reincarnated as Khamba
Ventured to Moirang
Then when I lost my way
I see Radha
Playing Holi with Khamba
Khamba courting the Gopis
I pursue that myth
Connected to my root
I question that history
Still it cannot answer
Where Khamba belonged?
Where he met Krishna?
How he played Ras Lila
In front of Thanjing Mandap
Oh! Poet, come back
And answer me
You have to re-write your epic
You have to re-sing Moirang-Parva
I’m still waiting
How you would explain
Khamba playing holi with Radha
And courting Gopis
Oh! Poet, come back
Console Khamba’s lament
for the made-to-believe myth.
NOTES
Machem : sister
Mathura : birthplace of Krishna
Moirang : birthplace of Khamba
Khamba-Thoibi : legendary lovers in Manipuri folklore
Khamnu : She is Khamba’s elder sister who raised him up as both were
orphans.Nongban pursued Thoibi. The folklore is recollected in the narration of Moirang Parva.
Holi : the festival of colours in Hindi tradition
Gopis : the Lovers of Krishna
Radha and Krishna : Krishna is a Hindu god and Radha is his consort
Ras lila : a dance drama of Krishna and his gopis
Thanjing Mandap : the courtyard of the deity Thangjing
