Protest is in our blood (Eidted by Sumitra Thoidingjam)

protest is in our blood
we started it from schools
breaking window panes
burning tyres, shouting slogans
and banners.

for me it started with Netaji's murder
in broad day light by commandos
my first commercial picture
came in the front page of Sanathong
wearing a black tie and sky blue shirt
we had learnt how to use onions
when tears gas shells were fired
from Kangla, a sacred place
(a place that opened its gate
when the mothers opened their clothes)

we crawled under the drain
in front of Imphal Talkies
there I saw her in the yellow skirt
and I felt in love
with her within the protest

My heart was like that of a goat
which gobbles up every leaf fed by anyone
I have learnt how to fall on my knees
for love and for my own life.

I have witnessed all form of protests
Chitaranjan, the mothers, 18th June,
none worked out the way people wanted

they all end in local newspapers

with something like Kekru Paats

they remain hidden in hills and vales

like knowledge in books you never get to read

and Sharmila with her hunger for justice -
in nine months a drop of blood turns into a human being
- for nine years incarcerated at JN hospital
when her land is having a carnival

The statue of liberty will crumble into rubble
to her feet.
Gandhi at Mahatma Gandhi avenue will shatter into dust
as she waits for the dusk
Sister the day you succumb will be the day
humanity dies
the day you succumb will be the day
your poetry will rain from the sky
the day you succumb will be the day
we will trade our banners with guns

I ignored you

I ignored you in the crowd
keeping your hands in my warm pocket of my jacket
you bought me on my 29th birthday
with my heart bleeding for the diwali night you stayed away
I ignored you in my poetry "wedding night"
calling you a pyramid
I ignored you cursing with lines
"You lift your skirt
walk like a princess in dirts
your high heel studded with cruelty"
I ignored you crying at nights of your memories
i ignored you when a friend died in a road mishap
i ignored you when the songs rape my mouth
i ignored you with 2000rs phone bills on my table

A Pahari Selling the Stories of Hills

I have been married to the stories of Hills
as i am a pahari from the hills in the East
Now let me sell my stories to the city dwellers
if you call those Hills a dot in India
Let me sell some of the AK47s
that my mother found while collecting fire woods.
Let me read my poetry of rape
at India Gate and Gateway of India

In the stories of hills
Poetry fails poets, dead ones are the heroes
Curfew walks the streets with its companion silence
folk tales evolve to fuck tales of ministers and revolutionaries
And people like me who love such fables
are high day and night trying to narrate the stories
in some corner of a city with words like rape, death,bullet.

I know this city is loud
but its youth lack stories to get high
they have not sun bathed in the bank of any river
they have not heard of stories of men
 who painted the streets with red stars
before they succumbed to their bullet injuries
They have not heard of Yumlembam Ibomcha screaming;
" if grapes are bullets
Shoot me again and again"
they have not heard of extortionists' struggle
for the right to self determination
they have not heard of folk tales
in which the wife gets raped in front of her husband
I must sell my stories now calling it them "sea of  puppies"
 or " the white Liars" or "One night at Whore centre"

Come Jayanta, lets sell the revolver
you found underneath your pillow in your poetry
Come get the 9mms too that you stole from a corpse
pretending to be a dead poet standing behind the coffin
Come Priya, bring your own death
away from the "men in uniform"
Let the city bleeds too
with "your pen that bleeds blue"
let's march with our bandwagon
let the city's loudness dies
and the city shrinks to a hut in our hills
Come, my love, help me selling my stories
We will marry when we get divorced with our stories of hills.

Name Me

looking out the window
i sat leg crossed
on the chair of bedbugs
with pencil in my hand
thinking of everything
like a man
who will be taken
to the gallows pole.
no words, you know,
ever came
like my window
open to a dark world.
Daddy knew
i was trying hard to be a poet
or philosopher
he told me;
"My son! before you find the right words
Change your name to Chattopadhyay"

fusksajDSHABNFDAHBFSAHDBFCSDH CFBSDKBV CKX

fuck this world.
i am a piece of shit
i dont ccare anymore
let the sons of bitches rule
let the bastard own me
who am i
i m not lucky to wrote this
let the fucking music rule me
i am the bitch
who dance in the street naked
i am the blood that flow in ur leg
i am  d bastard u killed
i am everyone u hate
i am the song u never sing
i am the fuck u had with the whore
i am fucking drung
i an fucking drunk
i am fucking dying
i am fucking cryingh\]
i am fucking killing u
i am fuck9nhg ifjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Burn

First they burnt Books,
Now they burnt schools,
Next they will burn Children,
and later they will burn you and me
including themselves
forgetting to draw the lines
of protest or resistance

Land of my birth (Translated by Soibam Haripriya from Meiteilon)

The bed my mother bore me
The land of my birth is the very bed my mother reclined
Why should this land be my homeland
Whence they taught me heartlessness
Heartlessly I have kicked my mother   
she has fallen cascading from the bed    
Now alone I am on the bed blocking my ears
Unbearable as it is
To hear my mother’s lamentation
This land is not my homeland
I am not the one my mother conceived
And why should not I take up arms
If indeed this is the land of my birth

Streets of Slippers

These slippers I wear they belong to the streets
someday someone will ring the iron post with a stone
and we will march in the streets
with our body as a symbol of resistance.
we will be dispersed with casualties
but these slippers will remain to protest
because everything that belongs to me defy them
even I will fall at the place wherever they shoot me
I will bleed all my blood to show I have lived a life
for this street of slippers I am the street poet

after tea

after Sipping tea,
we will see again
the sea of mine 
where you dip 
your heart 
like morning cookies 
in your cousin's cup of tea

Delhi

Now they have stopped
scratching their balls
they have stopped
staring at my sisters
Now they molest
Now they rape
He killed her with the knowledge
he has got from dowry killings
Yes that bastard burnt her body

Delhi is the city of rapists
and molesters.
leaving behind the thing called home
we survive here in the name of chinkies
with their hands on my balls
with their eyes staring at the tits
and the books call it "Unity in Diversity"