Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Kumar Hassan

The Elusive Song

Whenever it’s come

The love of life has come like an accident.

It has shattered upon the body

Has broken some bones

The blood-stained heart has been flung on earth

The eyelid has been open like an owl

The entire strange songs have hummed in the ears

Uprooted road, uprooted life dangles harmlessly

The chirping birds have flown away

Foxes, dogs keep on looking from far off

The unseen police raid unexpectedly

Help from far and near, the doctor’s helping hand

Before getting the clue

Everything bad thing occurs.

I don’t know whether she loves me

Or splits me to fragments

But it’s hard to sustain without her.

In every word of the world I’ll search

In every sense of the world I’ll explore

In the entire sky and in its voice

How short is life to love?

How people get so much of time not to love!

A Great Many Niyamgiris

We go, roam, eat and drink

Entertain for some days

And return back to the capital

We scribble an emotional anecdote in the dairy

Some poetry, some stories

Then we get oblivion.

Even behind the Niyamgiri

There are a great many Niyamgiris

Even beyond the Dongaria Konds and Jharania Kondhs

There are a great many

Where even the Kondhs haven’t trodden

Neither we nor the administration sets its feet.

Only their bare bosom

Peculiar costumes and flowers in the braids

Axes on the shoulders

Imperceptible songs, dances and music

The double-headed drums, flutes

They are the dhemsa dance.

As if they are none to us

Starving, living on the mango seeds

Selling daughters and pulling rickshaw

Making bricks, stranding in malnourishment

Or getting killed by the police

Or to see factories established in their land

Is only their identity.

Both poems translated from Odia by Pitambar Naik

Kumar Hassan

Kumar Hassan was born and raised in the then Sambalpur district of Odisha in India, a dynamite-like voice in Odia Literature who pens across the genres. The author of 60 books thus far and his creative thirst never quenches. A poet, critic, non-fiction writer in passion and journalist by profession; who is a Sub-Editor for the oldest and largest circulated Odia daily “The Samaj.” A recipient of many awards, fellowships and rewards that include the Odisha Sahitya Akademy award for his poetry. His poems are translated into many Indian and foreign languages such as Russian, French, Spanish, German etc. He lives in Sambalpur and dreams for a just, equal and harmonious world.

Pitambar Naik

Pitambar Naik was born and raised in Odisha in India, went to Gangadhar Meher College in Sambalpur for a BA and Osmania University for an MA in Journalism. He is an advertising copywriter based in Hyderabad and writes poetry and non-fiction in English. He has been featured in journals such as Brown Critique, Spark Magazine, CLRI, Indian Review, Indian Ruminations, Galaxy-IMRJ, Forward Poetry, UK, Hunter Poems, UK, Muse India, HEArt Online in the USA, Indian Periodical, Poetic Prism, An Anthology of Poetry of Indian poets and elsewhere. Some of his poems are due to be featured in Metaphor in the Philippines and in the Kitab, Singapore. He can be reached at [email protected]