The Dead's Motherbliss Poem by Munira Chowdhury

Water oozes out of two pierced eyes
In earth's ancient grave
Alas! In this stream of joy I also realize - rains have come,
Hard tortoises will dive into freshwater….
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Flowers of rain at Patihar, do not fear O startled deer
We were archetypal brother sister in archetypal rains and deep forests
That is why I do not always remain human
Half male pied crested cuckoo and half female…
Me and my dead grandmother (with her converted lover) smear rain's love song on each limb
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Alas rains! Between the living and the dead
Eternal motherbliss…
2.
I have known leaning on earth's window
Leaves of trees are trembling, fruit of paradise is hanging behind leaves
On the road descending into river faces of mild breeze float and drown…
Somewhat like flow of water slipping out of drowning person's eyes
This way
Carefree, one life thus…
Someone lighted the first lamp before hazy twilight entered the room
That light is shining on the mirror
As if a firefly waiting for the great night.

3.
This time the for real the lightning flashes
The birds come out of cages
The birds sleep inside the hole of lightning and wake up again.
Gradually feathers are falling, leaves are falling, rain is falling…
Some people add plastic feathers on bodies of birds
Storm arrives again on earth
And at the end of each storm I see in the morning
Those birds are waiting in my yard like the cloak wearing students of religious school.

4.
I hid the liquid tea garden in the flask
Now I get the fragrance of opium; I am drinking longevity…
Skylight of coloured glass panes at the head of the porch
The shadow is gradually deleted
Porch hung on flower-pots become permanent on grey walls
Boring a hole in the middle of the room a cup of light lies still on the floor.
You are seated in cane chair, a runaway from paradise
On brown hair as if an old photograph's full moon, clean air's uproar…
And I want to be that person
Who can go beyond your acting and your voice.

5
You have made your own the right of green-violence
The way you desired
Within yourself…
Scorched heart beside blood
Incondite moon's flesh and
You have enhanced the youth of burning scarlet hibiscus by many years.
Who are you eternity,2017…
Today the low pressure touching Bay of Bengal is powerful
On a spring-day I had heard, the Prince will come on a horse chariot
That Prince has never arrived
Dear monster has come, who was born out of my skull

6.
Dreams also have palms, eyes, lips…
That shiuli-blooming dawn two years earlier had countenance
Today I opened up my secret ribs and saw
That only face of dawn of my life which looked sad...
I secretly took out fall season from my grandmother's brass box
Wash two eyes of dawn with heaven's dews, complete sleep of Mathura Vrindavan.

7.
In this full moon night
Breath of forefathers are exploding in melting coffin
Giraffe's head is moving in the folds of paper, secret bloodflow
Blank paper's face waiting with questions is dissolving in deep mists.
.
I stand still
I accept fog bites….
.
At one point, the sun rose
The smell of touchstone burst into the stomach of the pregnant mother.
White blood keeps oozing from slaughtered words…
The rest of them are in a hurry to be hanged.
.
So that I may kill the words by hanging
I bring failed memory's Meheknanda river instead of paper pen
God's head hangs instead of words.

8.
There is no space in my journal
Night slit with blade and blood oozing from nerves all around.
Some blood though is burning. Pigs' screams are floating from cut-meat..
Arils of peeled out moon is peeking out…
.
Journal contains head of deer, crow and pencil, my lover's heart and patihar
Dead God's grave and incinerator side by side
Today a flock of dead birds have come from Babylon, for self-sacrifice once more.
.
I am hiding inside my journal.
Inside the ashtray of shadow and words I am becoming ash, ash.

9
I stay awake
I stay up all night with my cut off hand in other hand
Towards the eternal dawn, the hand glows in the depths hand's crematoria
I feel chilly when bone-throat become heated dense...I feel sleepy
.
In these Munira slumber there is no window, the doors' air is not friendly…

10.
Shadowy, wind is drowning in darkness, the face is not visible at all
Two vague shadows merging into the shadows
Same but so different
A body is moving on the ground with inactivity, innocence, apathy and extreme indifference…
And
The other is leaning a little, panting to get through the rubbish and bushes..
.
Occasionally trying to breathe intermittently
Then again she drags her burden more and more
was shocked to see what a little way she had passed!
.
When the shadows disappear
house and inside house and eyes inside eyes fall asleep
Maybe the rest of the earth's light is awake inside the firefly!

11.
Sound of fountains drip from folds of leaves
From bone to inside bones...
Running from the breast of trees to the breast of the birds, laments of rain.
Annoyed
Songs of wind…
.
Hands-feet-fingers of the wind sink into our glass windows
In this dark evening of summer
.
Stand for long under the fiery black sky
Me and my younger sister named Suicide
Has the mist cover of your mirror now clear!

12.
Seems the pair of eyes are melting in sleep...
I row the boat through high waves
On the boat are my dead grandmother and a pinky cat of infinity
.
In the eyeless sleep everywhere it is sleep
On both sides of the forehead, the pulse drips like the waves of the sea
It seems to be a sea of two pieces of thought
What happened thereafter?
No, what had happened prior to this?
Though there is nothing like before and after
Journey is always that of the present
Boat, dead grandmother and pinky all exist at this moment
Everything is decided
Steady and running again
Everything swings in sleep's huge butter...
.
No eyes on the face, no eyeballs in eyes
There is only all pervading sleep
Cascade of sleep within two eyelids.




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