The days when you entered like fog
into my heart’s core with circles spread out
and pervaded my world

The paths along which you led me with love-shackles
onto the peaks of ecstatic youth coaxing my
faltering thoughts of tender age’s deluges

The moments when we swayed
in unsoiled enchanting worlds drifting with
fervid passion into unfathomed gorges

Do they come to your mind too, any time?

The nights when you kindled
with your glances, the countless star lights in me
in the darkness where words blush

The paths in which you showered love-pollen
in the gardens of raga that we trod together
and you won me

The moments of oneness with resultant boundless love
after the warm thoughts shrinking like doves
jetted out from heart’s nest – their wings fluttered

Okay, I won’t remind, even for fun
Won’t measure the vigour of your memories

But enough it would be, if you promise
that a lightning signature of ours too
will be inscribed on all the moonlit moments
when tender buds blossom into flowers

Origin (Telugu): [...]]]> Things always keep coming to my mind

The days when you entered like fog
into my heart’s core with circles spread out
and pervaded my world

The paths along which you led me with love-shackles
onto the peaks of ecstatic youth coaxing my
faltering thoughts of tender age’s deluges

The moments when we swayed
in unsoiled enchanting worlds drifting with
fervid passion into unfathomed gorges

Do they come to your mind too, any time?

The nights when you kindled
with your glances, the countless star lights in me
in the darkness where words blush

The paths in which you showered love-pollen
in the gardens of raga that we trod together
and you won me

The moments of oneness with resultant boundless love
after the warm thoughts shrinking like doves
jetted out from heart’s nest – their wings fluttered

Okay, I won’t remind, even for fun
Won’t measure the vigour of your memories

But enough it would be, if you promise
that a lightning signature of ours too
will be inscribed on all the moonlit moments
when tender buds blossom into flowers

Origin (Telugu): Manasa Chamarthy
Translated by: Elanaaga

Word was a paper boat then.
A Titanic it was, revolving
around the world on scanty water

Now word is a broken boat.
A rock figurine unable to move
even when surrounded by oceans

All the poesy became debris
when word dropped to the ground
Now we are only moving amongst pebbles

One may hear an occasional sound
But there are no sounds of breath
Not even a small sigh around here

Occasions are aplenty just to talk!
But each context became an incongruity

Bloodshed, tears
explosions and mass deaths
are all usual trifles
All are incongruities to poetry

Amidst the beauty demons
who look for symmetry even in corpse face
I’m searching for a coarse word
that has not been depicted so far

In the deep slumber of language
which covered itself with lexicons
I’m looking for a word
that has dropped all its embellishments

***

Again, About a Poem

1

Digging the ground a bit
and strapping the time in a phial
we buried it. Remember?

A child’s merriment it is.
May [...]]]> A Certain Incongruity

Word was a paper boat then.
A Titanic it was, revolving
around the world on scanty water

Now word is a broken boat.
A rock figurine unable to move
even when surrounded by oceans

All the poesy became debris
when word dropped to the ground
Now we are only moving amongst pebbles

One may hear an occasional sound
But there are no sounds of breath
Not even a small sigh around here

Occasions are aplenty just to talk!
But each context became an incongruity

Bloodshed, tears
explosions and mass deaths
are all usual trifles
All are incongruities to poetry

Amidst the beauty demons
who look for symmetry even in corpse face
I’m searching for a coarse word
that has not been depicted so far

In the deep slumber of language
which covered itself with lexicons
I’m looking for a word
that has dropped all its embellishments

***

Again, About a Poem

1

Digging the ground a bit
and strapping the time in a phial
we buried it. Remember?

A child’s merriment it is.
May be you don’t remember.
Is it the same about poem too?

2

Not having anything to pen
for you, me and perhaps for everybody…
Like the homework not likeable precisely at once
and the never loveable syllabus…

Not that there’s no agony
But unable we are, to write about pain
except others’

Weeping with borrowed eyes
and sprinting on stilts –
Perhaps ordinary wooden leg
is not enough to write the inner poem

3

Not counting in terms of own or alien though
When did you stop wandering in your body?
Won’t you give me an inkling of it?
Of late, even the skin
is looking like other’s shirt.
Which is truth and which is not,
will be known by the words uttered.

4

Nice that a mine is found
which we assumed as a poem

You, I and everybody
have dug extensively inside and outside
But is poem obtainable
by digging at wrong place?

Do you remember poem’s birth?
Perhaps you don’t.
It’s a childhood’s merriment after all.

***

Origin (Telugu): Afsar
Translated by: Elanaaga

Pain it is, not to pen
But penning is a big labour pain too
Penning, not penning
and contemplating penning…
An unending journey it is.
A delectable tour too
that drives from behind
despite the bramble brushings

Origin (Telugu): Elanaaga
Translated by: Elanaaga

The single-pillared edifice
of dream plates collapsed to ground.
With the love smoke of incense sticks
the sky’s throat suffocated.
Peeved at not straining
even a fraction of tear-fountains,
the curry leaf plant in backyard
immolated itself in fire

The highway folded its golden cestus
and flung itself as an escaped python.
Concealing her Rajasthani
cheesy sprucings, coral parlance as well,
the girl fully opened the gate

At the midnight hour
the dog with severed tail,
only has a Harikatha of travails to listen to.
No gods turn up till daybreak
to grant any boon

On the way
lay the butterflies with broken wings
White baby rabbits hop in agitation
Chained lustrous flies with golden sheen abound

For the construction of another world
ensues a hunt for tools

Monarchs’ pictures can’t be drawn
with depleted slate pencil
Democracy’s frontiers can’t be
demarcated on broken slate
Alas – The poor child is
cooped up in the well.
Wanting to hoist a poem
I opened the window
A loud noise of flowers
emanated at once

The single-pillared edifice
of dream plates collapsed to ground.
With the love smoke of incense sticks
the sky’s throat suffocated.
Peeved at not straining
even a fraction of tear-fountains,
the curry leaf plant in backyard
immolated itself in fire

The highway folded its golden cestus
and flung itself as an escaped python.
Concealing her Rajasthani
cheesy sprucings, coral parlance as well,
the girl fully opened the gate

At the midnight hour
the dog with severed tail,
only has a Harikatha of travails to listen to.
No gods turn up till daybreak
to grant any boon

On the way
lay the butterflies with broken wings
White baby rabbits hop in agitation
Chained lustrous flies with golden sheen abound

For the construction of another world
ensues a hunt for tools

Monarchs’ pictures can’t be drawn
with depleted slate pencil
Democracy’s frontiers can’t be
demarcated on broken slate
Alas – The poor child is
cooped up in the well.
Writhing she is, in distress.

The traitor who stabbed the flute
and stole ragas from it
is garlanded in Satyagraha tent.
Having become a kite,
a severed head
is dangling from a tree branch

A march of wasps on eyelids
An attack of large ants on nose
A sprint race of baby elephants on lips
I stood beside the statue of a leader
at the junction of crossroads.
But there seems no respite to the assault

Banging on the waves of wind
someone is shouting.
A stratagem is burning in the ocean
that is flowing rhythmically – says he

Come
Walk a few steps with me

Origin (Telugu): Dasaraju Ramarao
Translated by: Elanaaga

What difference
Between a teardrop’s stridency
And a blood drop’s tepidity

Everything alike
As the inner heart of a lover

A warrior is
Ever ready to kill

A lover is
Prepared to get killed

It became evening it seems
The sun is washing his sword
And the moon is
Searching for wounds

Origin (Telugu): K. S. Ramana
Translated by: Elanaaga

Origin (Telugu): Nagaraju Ramaswamy
Translated by: Elanaaga

Some arid melancholy blended and soaked
In the rippling sounds of flowing river
What more are there on river bank?

On a river bank there are
Multi coloured pebbles
Broken snail shells
Footprints carrying tinkles of anklets
Lamps of moonlight assembled on noon clouds

Is that all? No.
On a river bank
There’s a nameless sweetheart
A buddy without own place
A celestial embrace
And a surreal handshake

Besides these
There’s also a frisky river
which unmindful of all these
flows gleefully

Origin (Telugu): Pasunuru Sreedhar Babu
Translated by: Elanaaga

When words shatter and melt
Purports scatter, scare and wilt
And thoughts vanish into distant horizons
A habitation is needed
To learn words anew

When desires disappear, making body a lean stick
Rarefied reflections render heart an empty shell
And every route is shut
Leaving pitch darkness all around
A sprinkle of greeting is needed
To sprout anew

A veritable life of your own
To enter at your will is needed.
Not as a mere figure carrying lungi and banian
In the present, oscillating into past and future
Should one live.
From the sickening payments of monthly bills
And the senseless smiles of sham stratagems
Should one sail smoothly into pithy life

Like a fluttering finch
Entering its nest at least
Should one embrace life with finesse.
Quench we should, our thirst
By parting the water of a flowing rivulet.
Rise we should, from the relics of a bee
Waiting on the lump of wax
Thrown after squeezing [...]]]> A place, a native town
Or an acquaintance at least
Is needed to frequent on and off

When words shatter and melt
Purports scatter, scare and wilt
And thoughts vanish into distant horizons
A habitation is needed
To learn words anew

When desires disappear, making body a lean stick
Rarefied reflections render heart an empty shell
And every route is shut
Leaving pitch darkness all around
A sprinkle of greeting is needed
To sprout anew

A veritable life of your own
To enter at your will is needed.
Not as a mere figure carrying lungi and banian
In the present, oscillating into past and future
Should one live.
From the sickening payments of monthly bills
And the senseless smiles of sham stratagems
Should one sail smoothly into pithy life

Like a fluttering finch
Entering its nest at least
Should one embrace life with finesse.
Quench we should, our thirst
By parting the water of a flowing rivulet.
Rise we should, from the relics of a bee
Waiting on the lump of wax
Thrown after squeezing the oozing honeycomb.
To sink into yourself
To smoulder and be left as yourself
A man should at least be available to you.

Original (Telugu): Yakoob
Translated by: Elanaaga

Notes magical, wafted by the gentle breeze,
Floated like soft petals with gaiety and ease;
Flowing by my side O Music Divine
Oft you pull me and entwine caressingly

(Self rendering of my Telugu poem titled Naada Mahima)

1.Quickening = The first movements of foetus in mother’s womb
2.Maru Bihag = The name of a raga in Hindustani classical music