Writings of Sharmy Pandey

Moments

That day
storm
rising
or
the impending
pregnant
goat
convulsing
in our
soil
or
that day
when
like rain
sky
gave out
sunlight
that
streamed
endlessly



And the night littered the road with the consumer moonlight
The tar-cheeked city still is ready for dreams in melting tungsten light
Music bows to the rusty nails from a vendor’s tool

Words bloom as moments
From the edge of voice
And memory flows
Viscous down the ears
Eyes that look back from habit, not seeing



And the entire city is filled with the smell of rotten flowers
low of New Jersey cow
flow of bitter winds



that means then-only from my city
a slice of star fell off
As it revolved and kept revolving – it ran
as one long breath
grew and
it’s splintered splinter of atoms
shadows
spell
tottering around
What I at last wrapped in a strong polythene and carbon
And kept it alive in the warmth of dead cold burner



Many days have past like those many many days
Lots of unsaid – or less said – some what
sound less words – claps – glory and gap
lines and folds – city is not moving – when
sweat trickles down from Coca-Cola tin
not a single bus moves to destination less
destination – in absolute casualness
In an empty time crawling in the lap of the sky
moving the cloak – removing in a whiff – the clouds and
complexities – water and the drenched breath



At this moment unarmed – unarsed
Without coldness – without teeth – obsessive
Groping for a diseased search
Are now enmeshed the gothic structure of words



Pore a large dose of black on the paper
Dip your fat or thin finger
from the bottom end of the paper till the middle
mark nine close strokes
Give few drops of water and few drops
of tears of the hard brush



That’s colour
That’s sky
That’s emptiness
Or you



To be taken over by emotions returning home
with part and particles of neon
life along the ground and the plastic sound
of the mineral water – 40 ounces of local hooch
and ten twelve spurts of vomit creep and crawl across the
symbolic tramline – where lies
some dried condom-love and where the green
carpeted spread seeks for shadows everyday
the lost time trickles down with the afternoon sun
straight in the middle of the road
the back – in front or below
and seeks for the dust of vision in myopic glass
Actually that day is the day when – from the feathers
of bird flew husks and the smell of the lime of the wall
were everywhere – few drops of longing were merging in the sky
The temptation of colours – as colours – or colour – or colour-debt


Translated from Bangla By Sharmy Pandey and Parnab Mukherjee