His and Hers

by Soibam Haripriya 

A bigger face
a bigger strap
a smaller face
a smaller strap
for thick muscular hands for thin slender arms
They said its
God-given
big things for man
small things for woman
Titan had wrapped them up
with velvety cloth
perfect wedding gifts
His and Hers

A bigger hand
A harder slap
leaving bluish purple marks
you get accustomed to

Slender hands
to be wrung about helplessly to
welcome
a burn here, a cut there as
one her kind
should get accustomed to.

And all these came
packed in a golden box with velvet inside
the sturdy-ness of his, the softness of hers
God-given
wrapped in skin and bones Perfect gifts
for Hu-man-kind

Three Questions

by Soibam Haripriya

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
unrelentingly 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

Rooting for Neruda's Images

A brief review of Robin Ngangom’s “The Desire of Roots” 
Chandrabhaga Publications, Cuttack, 2006

by Soibam Haripriya 

There are many ways of exploring belongingness. Some do it by seeking the desire of roots.  Others do it by identifying the 'otherness' in the desire. Robin Ngangom's The Desire of Roots still remains just a desire, a longing for the labyrinth terrain of the 'known' by the same roots. This desire of roots does not find the roots but creates new ones. Like the auxiliary roots descending from a canopy of branches belonging to an aged banyan tree. The roots in the air seek to unite with the mother roots beneath the earth, their home. These auxiliary roots become trunks which will again sprout roots from above. Reading Ngangom's collection of 48 poems, I am left thinking about these auxiliary roots and how they have been nurtured and fostered. In these poems, I find the familiarity of an aura and the scent I experienced when I first read Neruda in college.

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood— 
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent 

Between Two Flags

by Chaoba Phuritshabam 

One, three headed
One, a charming chakra Scramble for me
I, bewildered,
baffled.
Beloved, both
Belonged to both One, borne
One, nurtured

Frequent, my minds' eye
the flag embellished
with sakok
My thought feebled
at the flags' awaiting
Frequent, my thoughts
the flag embellished
with chakra
My thought feebled at the flag
I didn't belong to

Mislaid at the warfield
between two flags
I asked all
Who do I belong to
Frequent, my thought
Can I belong to both?

One, borne
One, nurtured

I feared
life's lofty forts
I feared
I couldn't traverse
these chained heights
I feared
the sakok embellished flag chasing me
with a sword
stating a stranger, I am

Between two flags
Scrambling for me
She is mine
She is mine
they said
Sliced me
Some pieces for one
Some pieces for another
Why the scramble?
Who do I belong to?

Pacified
I, adrift
between two flags
between these two flags

(translated by Soibam Haripriya)

Nothing

by Soibam Haripriya

No pain
of loss
No angst
or pathos
The footsteps
gradually
die

The breeze
flies carrying
a scent Memories 
—some
faded
some
discarded
Nothing
was
left

not even
a tattered
shred
Not even the scab
of an old wound

Daily Insanity

by Soibam Haripriya

Morning began
with the anticipated
surprise of daily deaths
Afternoon's a stroll
to an ocean without a
shore where broken
boats of hope row away
in little ripples
With dusk
the drunken poets came
Afflicted by a strange epidemic of optimism
brought forth by bouts of nostalgia
When the insipid evening
arrived like a hermit with vows
of poverty I find insomniac soul
gazing wistfully at the end
of a graceful coil of a rope

A Death of My Own

by Soibam Haripriya

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