Ramya

Again

During the heritage trip,
In the sage Kanva’s hermitage
Met Shakuntala
Fell in love at first sight
Our conversation began as pauses
After initial meeting,
Made secret marriage
And prepared for the unshamed pleasure

I became a tofu
She Marinated herself on me
She did with her core feminine essence
Was almost for the sacred sin
Wanted her to my altar
To sacrifice the whole mine
A woman’s wild nature is her deepest truth

Shakuntala, presence of a thousand women
Found women of Ravi Varma’s sensitivities
She’s carrying her own weather
The distance finally ended
It’s rare when an attire and a person feel inseparable
This was one of those moments.

She’s a Epiphyllum flower
Sun and Moon embossing as feminity
That’s so louder and louder…
With her my union was not a romance,
But a purpose!
Transferred a signet ring when in peak
Gustav Klimt would get inspired by my kiss with her

By curse of Durvasa
Forgot all the above and Recollected later
But need of curse Again
To forget every everything,
Except you!
Be mine Shakuntala
As I’m yours…..
What if? It all works out…

Vachathi, An Ode to Rape

Thirty one years old rape,
still so fresh on flesh
In the River bed repeatedly raped at night With multiple

Night is not something to endure until dawn
It’s an element, like water or air
Darkness is its own kingdom
It moves to its way of laws and flexibility

In the ebony black night,
Can’t see who’s raping
But can feel the difference

Chitteri hill and the night had the eyes
To witness the unskippable force
Sexually assaulted for hours,
years passed…..
But still so fresh on flesh

Every touch of everyone
Paining differently
For some moments in life
There are no words,
Mind full of unsaid things

Feminity was eclipsed by the weak masculine
Also and perhaps
Craving for uncomplicated quiet

Though conceptual disappointment within
Oddly enough for the mourn
Years passed,
After This,That, Why, How & etc
Wedding happened

Night again,
What I want the most of all
Is…..
Always, Always!

The feeling is mutual
Magnet to magnet
Every woman is a Belladonna….

Take My Virginity

By the uniform,
Stepping into the blue light brothel house
Narrowed my eyes
Towards the brutally soft woman.

Everything I’ve never done
Want to do with you…
Collapse in me, just once
Eventually things align,
As it should…..

We, unspeakably desirable pollination
The hug of you,
Recalling the Greek phalanx

No words for this collide
An absolute unforced force

Too much yet not enough
Happened between us
The curve of your lips rewrite the history

Begged you,
To handle my fire
You, deserved for my wild and mild
Not fearing to die in the war
But not virgin…..

You, my yesterday’s mistake
But wanting you,
In my every days.

When you touched me,
Never touched with hesitation
Touched like your own.
Somewhere, something, somehow
You took my virginity
So I’m yours, Let’s get married…..

Prof. Ramya, Indian Writer and Tribal Researcher is presently doing Doctoral Researchin Tribal literature. She is researching tribal life and culture in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala,Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and others. She extends her research area on hidden social issues inIndia. She focuses on empowering the education and sustainable livelihood on tribes in TamilNadu. She has done various research articles on tribes and her works have been featured inOutlook India, Indian Express, Pioneer, Mathrubhumi, Navjeevan, Ground Report and others.She has also written the books titled Voice of India, The Outlook and The Gond and Muria Tribes. Her poems have beenfeatured in various reputed magazineslike Today Magazine, The Literary Mirror, Your Platform and beyond in India. Body Politics, The Unknown and Matsyagandha poems are featured in international magazines across Srilanka, Australia, Pakistan and United States

Zhao Fan ( Chinese Poetry)

Number

Terrorist attacks killed more than 30 people
Shot down more than 60 thugs
Ebola took more than 700 West-African lives
Chemical accidents in Taiwan and Kunshan
Each annihilated dozens of living
The death of today at 4:30 PM is close at hand
Authoritative release: earthquake caused the death toll to rise to 221
People have to perform the symbol of hands clasped together
Wish the number of death would stop here
Nature treats creation like sacrificial straw-dogs
I was shocked that by the understanding of death was
Limited to numbers only

Childhood

Childhood’s afternoon was endless
I walked alone along the road
Encountered few friends on the way
The sun passed through the water
Illuminated the stone fish that swam at the bottom of the pool
The earthworms under the bricks revealed their heads
Velvety branches scratched my arms
Salvia splendens was everywhere
I sucked nectar from it alone
Inside of a clump of bamboo was hidden
The treasure of dreams
That bamboo shoot has arcane texture
How should I collect?
Toward those paths

Your name

You went away
I sat on the couch to drink water
The whisper went far away
The look faded out
The boiling scene gradually cooled
Years later
Only a name was left
Other people and things will cover my memory
What can be expected is that
When I think of you
I will meditate your name
Repeatedly

Zhao Fan
Zhao Fan was born in Kunming in 1987. He is a Ph.D student of East China Normal University in Chinese modern literature. published a few articles, poems in journals, a chap book of poetry , and translating the poetry of published a few papers and a few translated papers and poems, Just have finished to translate a poetic works by Mi Jiayan

Dinkar Manwar

Portrait

Don’t turn away from me
Water
Stay within my sight
Don’t babble or gush
Be utterly silent
Be utterly still

Let me enter deep into you
Let me at last hear your voice
Let me feel you with my desperate hands
Let my tongue lick your feet
Let me get a sense
Of what all you have been hiding in your heart

Water
My father my mother my lord
Wait for me for a while
I want to paint
Your portrait.

The Beginning

What tree is this?
It has no leaves no fruits
And no bird builds its nest on it.

No woodcutter has cut and taken it away
And yet it stands as an indivisible part of the forest
Who waters it again and again?
And who sprays pesticides on it unfailingly in every season
No one is going to get any moisture from its shade in future
Nor is anyone from future generations going to taste its fruits
How come the birds didn’t recognize this fact ?
Or is it that someone has sprayed avicide on them too?
By now the white ants should have gathered under it
Or is it that someone has waylaid them or put sugar on their paths ?
Even then attempt after attempts are being made secretly
To keep this tree alive.

Nothing

One day water will burst forth from nothing
One day bhakri will grow from water
One day hunger will spring from bhakri
One day man will arise from hunger
One day
Boredom will burst forth from man
One day woman will be born from boredom
One day woman will give birth to the womb
One day the womb will give birth to the tree
One day the earthen flower will grow from the tree
One day the earth will turn into vapour from the flower
One say the vapour will turn into a cloud
One day the rain water will fall from the cloud
One day only the water
Will give birth to the nothing again

Dinkar Manwar is a poet, editor and visual artist. He was on the editorial board of ‘Shabdved’, a well-known Marathi literary magazine, which was published from Shegaon in Maharashtra. After the closure of ‘Shabdved’, he now edits, along with well-known poet and critic D.G Kale, the Marathi magazine ‘Atirikt’, which is dedicated to literature of the nineties and the post-nineties era. Popular Prakashan published Manwar’s first book of poems, Drushya Naslelya Drushyat, and Poetrywala his second book of poems, Ajunahi Barech Kahi Baki. Manwar heads the Regional Transport Office of the Nanded and Hingoli district. The following poems are translated by Sachin Ketkar