This Is The Poem Of My Life

Jayanta Oinam *

-I-

how would i know
the cries of words
when they are left unheard
to the mercy laden taunts of jingoist
how would i know
the worries of dead
when seasons are shoved and heaved around
for the wreckage called life
how would i know
if she ever cried
when the crops wail for a trickling of hope

but i know why i write poem
i write poems to appease every restless word
i write poems to disown me, in the crowd
i write poems so that i can walk like a death man

-II-

no more, thus i announce the death of me
i don't know how my corpse would be buried
i don't know how my grave would be dug
i don't know how my body would riled in the pyre
i don't know how my funeral would reek

but what i know is
my grave will host a scroll of poems
my funeral will be a procession of dead poets

-III-

when i write poems, it invokes no magic
when i recite my poems, my voice crumbles
when i read your poems, my heart sinks

but the cinders of wood from my pyre
they will sing songs, and the sparks
they will applaud my poems

-IV-

oh, you don't know my wife
every night, when i kissed her
she recites me a poem, every night
a poem a night, from the scribbles
that i left after each intercourse
she thought, my poems are fake
and she blamed me how i made her fake

i don't know how
but she did hate my poems
when i returned home after days rigour
she would received me with my poems
at the doorstep
so that i could see the hunger in her face
because, i did recite while she moan
so that i could feel her frailty
because, i did feed her only the poems
i didn't know how
but she survived, until
one day she dragged me at the altar of oblivion, and there
she slit her throat and offered me every drop of blood, and said
"this is the poem of my life".