~Bhupi Sherchan~
Translated by Yuyutsu Sharma
Daily in my dreams
young mothers come and like a lunatic
“O now my milk is of no value,
nor there remains now any meaning of my motherhood”
start singing this song
and start showing me their unfed breasts
swollen from the excess of stale milk,
an ugly pig suckling her filthy offspring,
start feeding them from their breasts
start pulling their matted hair,
start beating their breasts, start demanding
the presence of their long lost sons.
Daily in my dreams
battered by the kicks of the world
rejected
by the demons of death
fragile-boned old men and
shriveled up elderly women come
to lie prostrate before me,
to ask from me a thread of their uncertain future,
to inquire
the whereabouts of their long lost sons.
Daily in my dreams countless
young widows come to strip naked before me
showing black bruises on their snowy plump bodies
wrought by lust of the eyes of the world.
Daily in my dreams
carrying germs of tuberculosis come
countless children to demand from me
fee for their school, money to buy books,
a cricket bat, a father’s kiss,
security and a night of sound sleep.
This way in my dreams daily
a vast ocean of tears of the men of Malaya takes shape.
In each wave of this sea
a fresh corpse comes up as previous one corpse sinks
But before sinking, each corpse
flares its bloodshot eye at me.
O how in my dreams
my wake’s contemptuous history hates me!
(Source : Drunkenboat.com)
