Cheers, Marx!

-by Alisha Eklas

Nothing has happened!

Wandering around the hospital yard

The drape of life fell

Then, froze

The feverish body

Nothing has happened!

Before knowing

That life is transient

Sada[1] waved his hand forever

From his birth

He will not wander

At heaven

Seeking for a packet of jivanjal, an ORS

Nothing has happened!

Just assaulted on the vagina

In the authority-directed

Oh, sorry! Authority-operated Quarantine

Neither the neck is pressed

As such to Nirmala[2]

Nothing has really happened!

Dear Marx,

Your disciples

Became an opium

He will ring the bell

The bell of Golden Rule

Tong! Tong!! Tong!!!

We shall look

From the divine state—heaven

Together

How is that a proletarian revolution

If proletariats are no longer left?

Cheers, Marx!

Proletariats are liberated!

The Freedom is in the religion

Also exists in your philosophy!

[1] Sambhu Sada, 23 a Musahar man who had in-custody death.

[2] A girl aged 17. She was gang-raped, and killed brutally and thrown in a sugarcane field.

The Equidistant

-by Manoj Muskil

A sound resonates at midnight,
Ripples and spreads
Something is dripping!

The drunkard wind along the road
Has not boisterously walked
The hands of time
Do not meet one another
That they plunged into
An eternal journey together
The unconscious murkiness is still in a shock
Not woken up yet

The sound no longer can
Remember its sound
The sight no longer can
Find its lost address
The consciousness can no longer
Recognize its realization

Something has happened-
Some mishap
Some are tranquil yet, at rest
Something is unsteady, yet dynamic
Something is usual, yet absurd
Something is dripping, for sure
That withers so gently
And waves to every element

As water trickles steadily
From the roof of a fossil-grave
Something is dripping!

As the cocktail of blood and semen
Streaming from the raped vagina
So brutal,
Something is dripping!

As the drop of motherland trickles
From the chest of a brave soldier
In the borders;
Something is dripping

From the time, the age
From the palm, the water
From the hug, the love
From the eternity, the universe
Planet, satellite and particles
Something is dripping, for sure!

A chest—the tomb of love and triumph
Broken and daubed in mud
An eye—a slaughterhouse of tears and dreams
That reflects into another eye!

A face—scorched with one’s own fingernails
A throat—pressed by one’s own hands
A bald pate—made barren with one’s own fingers
A heart—trodden by one’s own feet

Yet, all the sights, visions and perceptions
Agitated—facing one another

Yet, all the happenings and phenomena
Wordless, worded!

Right now,
Unawares, woken up from one’s laid body
Someone is whispering,
Something is dripping,
See above from the upper storey
Something is dripping like you!

A Lesson

-by Roshan Pariyar

Form your heart the scissors

That persistently cuts and breaks into pieces

Wrap a rose around a needle

Insert the yarn of pains and hurts

Then,

Stitch steadily

To the frayed life

On the sewing machine of serenity

The pains will taste awesome

While they begin to pain.

(Hem Bishwakarma is a poet and translator from Nepal. He has many poetry and short stories translations, and poems in Nepali and English published to his credit. He mostly works on Nepali-English translations.)