A bulk of translated poems by Chandan Goswami

Trap         

Translated by:  Bibekananda  Choudhury

 

Surpassing everything  Travelling towards the trap

 

Stitching the bait in the fishing_hook

In the water_trap

The world in meditation keeps moving From this wave to that

 

Thousands of fish Of dreams Enrapturing

An endless journey of meditation Of the species of citizen

 

 

Voice of the dewdrops Drops down

Through the holes of the Numbed trap

 

An Ethereal Path     

Translated by:  Bibekananda Choudhury

 

The skeleton lying on the sandbar Prays a sky

Cloud covered From ages unknown

 

 

The interlocutor Reads out the story of the skeleton

Today the sun enters into the skeleton

where songs of millions of people are written

And builds a jail himself

 

 

There it Gives away gives away

The way to a path and moves Far away far away

 

 

My deceased mother weeps Inside my skeleton

The sobbing of a skeleton alive

 

A fish will be the interlocutor

The colour of sunshine lay hidden in the molehill

 

 

Song of insects

Translated by:  Bibekananda  Choudhury

 

The cackling of birds get Immersed in the wooded obsession The insects nibble away the life

Am moving after a will o  the-wisp

Following a serpentine path And holding redolence of the sun in my fist, We get lost in a fern field

 

 

The leaves are falling one by one It appears that the roots have forsaken the old fertile soil

 

 

The rustle of dry leaves Wafts from the deserted garden

 

 

There is continuous fighting inside and outside The staff in scorched by the fire

 

 

O Destiny Since when did you nibble away the moonlight of the moon On whose heart those moonlight holes up Who  perishes when in whose breathe

 

 

It is  a story of countless insects Whose veins carry  spirited voice

 

 

It just nibbles away relentlessly The pages of the epics The the current of the river The cackling of children

 

 

 

Thief

Translated by Gayatri Devi Borthakur.

 

The mind of a thief is in  every single iota

 

To awoke napping the cadaver of a dead village

A thief arises  eras by era

Also to flog

 

 Thief is a human being

 A human being is a thief

 

At the  scorched edge of half-burned conscious and unconscious  veins

There prime protection

 To spend   blink fewer nights

 

Enormous    sleep and breathless   nights     

Sketched in the name of a thief

 

No hunger No thrust

Only eager nights to have the desired  dream of a thief 

Too is the

illusions of   a thief

 

Scraping the heart of a stone

Darkness spreads embracing an infinite figure

Without food

In starvation

Enormous children

And  women too

In streets

In the camps of the refugees

In the houses of the starved

 

 

All the attractive advertisements

Of the aristocrats are

In the name of a thief

 

Took the orchids

 The bracelets

 Took away Ornaments

 Took away Vehicles

 Took away Clothes

 Took away Condoms

 

Took away

Took away

Bit by bit

 

In the public zones

 In the Crossroads

In every place

Is the  descriptive description of a thief

Leaving the afternoons after the talks of  a thief

Enormous afternoons passed away rotating the same

 

But to  have the eyes of thieves

The Mass is pathetically tensed today

 

Morning walk is

 Nothing but

 a practice

 of running

 

Topic is pathetic

Please do write a poem for a  thief

 

To assemble the words in the  heart

At first, have to read secretly

the pens of others

And  also to tell the poet  about  the story of the rotten apple of his  own fake experience

 

Keeping in mind the history  and geography of  a thief

Will the crowd shout horribly

Thief  thief  thief

 

As soon as you give attention

 Here and there

Thinking  of his own 

The thief will pick up your thought

And will  shout

Thief thief  thief

 

 

 

For those who haven't a Yard

Translated by Gayatri Devi Borthakur

 

Those who haven't a yard

Also haven't a seedling of Jasmine

Nor they  have the large bundles of paddy sheafs

Nor the stars

 

If there is no yard

There must not be a pedal

Nor the two women gossiping

While picking up lice of one another

 

 Where the grannies will sprinkle the sweetness of their stories

 

No imagination

No dreams

 

If there is no yard

How the Sparrows will come

Where the dove and the mynah will coo

The lines of the ants

The worms carrying raindrops in their bodies

Will they

If there is no yard

The lasses staring the long entrance of the  houses

Where will rest

The mass is losing

many things, gradually

 

The wetlands

The backyards full of nuts

The lemon trees

The  shrubs of bitter flowers

The trees of sour fruits

The backyards full of plums and pineapples and many more

 

The villages

The looms

The  marriage-pandals

 

Having no Yards

Must be a symbol of modernity..

 

 

 

An  Art of Noni Borpujari

Translated by Gayatri Devi Borthakur

 

Sinking in the blood of grief from centuries

Silently an art is sprinkling eyes

Aloofly passionate eyes

 

On that very night

An undestroyable raga emerged alive

 

Blood out of eyes

Blood out of the nose

Blood out of lips

 

In each and every vein of the heart

Is the whistle of blood

 

Pin drop silence

From an uncrowded rail

An art of Noni gets off

 

In the voice of tip-tap moist is the weeping of Radha

 And laments every now and then

 

Noni is in the deep blue of the art..

Poetry

Translated by Gayatri Devi Borthakur

 

 

As you keep unveiling the meanings

The pain will be increased

Pronounced words are the speakers

Readers are  the cruel beings

 

In the seventh dimension of a light-year of the Universe

The sailor is on the way to the distant horizon

Making its meaning

 

A  leech from  one  grass to another

Absorbing blood from the vaginal of a pig

Guesses the myths

 

Spies are in the air

In water

Inland

A poet sprinkles life in the knowledge

Transformed from one spy to another

 

Every element is in the game of dice that is  full of tricks

The sky, the air, the moon, the Sun and the stars

 

Cloudy land is the result

 

I remember nothing said to me

When I came  back everybody was far away from the fire

Busy in conversation

 

 

It is true that  everybody warmed up in solidarity

Coming back from  the water

 

Water and fire purifies everything

Fire and water - the perfect couple, made for each other

 

After knowing all these

Putting the fruit in the mouth

Enormous procession  came one after another

With endless hopes

 

Endless illusions

Who waits to listen to the last word

A soldier or a lover

 

Everyone who removes starvation with your flesh

In the battlefield

Tremble's hearts with the experiences of crossing the  hells

 

In the weeping of dreams and nightmares

Are the pathetic tells of  all the suffered from the Universe

 

Who will reform  such lameness

 

Who will translate the meaning of the Morning Sunshine

Stored in the beak of a couple of mynahs

 

A tell waiting for another tell...

About the author: Chandan Goswami(1976)  is an Assamese youth writer. He was born in  Kapahera village of Morigaon district, Assam, India.

He completed his post-graduation and LLB from Guwahati University. Poet Goswami  though belonged to a very 

the lower-middle-class family was rich in poetry from his early childhood. His first poem was published when he was in nine standards. Since then he is dedicating his life to this form of literature. His poems published continuously in the esteemed and leading magazines and newspapers of Assam proves his mastery in Poetry.  He also writes short stories and critic columns. He is also related to various literature organisations working for  'Satriya‘ culture. ' For the ones without a courtyard' was his first collection of poetry which was published in the year 2012. This book was translated into English by  Bibekananda Choudhury, the esteemed Scholar.

Poet Goswami edited research journals ‘Lokosanskrity“ of folklore and also edited journals based on poetry,    literature and socio-political aspects from his early days of Youth.  Recently poet Goswami was able to include a major piece of work to his list i.e.' Noni Borpujari', a collection of biographical sketch and critical analysis 0f works of artist Noni Borpuzari, the prominent artist, painter,  printmaker,  sculptor and socio-political activist of Assam, India. This edited book, published in the last of this year, is drawing the attention of the intellectuals.