Arun al-Rashid
Posted: September 30, 2023 Filed under: Poem, Poetry | Tags: Foreign Love, Harun al-Rashid, Incognito, Money matters, Poverty & Love, The Arabian Nights, The nameless faceless one Leave a commentMannheim, 2017
This clean-shouldered bottle of baby oil,
the smell of jasmine
with the child-proof cap came
for three euros. For another three and a half
a warm döner
from a Turkish döner shop
to halt the grumble of an empty stomach.
The day’s weariness —
The carping of the empty pocket doused
with the cheap charred meat. When the shop girl
of Netto asked my name.
When I was only killing time.
Oh, but I’m only killing time.
Yes, yes, lady, I’m only killing time.
Wait, how much this oil?
Thereon the smell of baby on me.
This year’s winter is dim —
infectious.
Dry meat is boiling
in the kitchen
in an unfragrant
night of plague.
Making me feel unloved,
like an imp, who’s aching
to burn
down
this city
after repeating his name:
Arun al-Rashid, Arun al-Rashid,
you are in a jasmine dream.
(The poem was first published in Outlook India: https://www.outlookindia.com/culture-society/five-poems-about-people-across-the-world-weekender_story-328626)
Bride, 1970
Posted: June 30, 2023 Filed under: Poem, Poetry | Tags: Agrarian Life, Poverty & Education, Poverty & Love, Rural Bengal Life, Rural India, Rural South Bengal 1970, The Life of a Farmer Woman, Woman Marriage Emancipation 1 CommentA new bride has come, the palanquin has left.
Those who’ve come late — the old viewers: grim.
Brittle-finger mothers measure the skin
of the girl. Her ornaments’ weight. Hair. Teeth.
The onlookers grow. This new girl’s laugh —
Tell me, tell me, ma, will she be tame?
Will she not blind our boy (for how long they themselves
could)? But a new girl shall possess new new tricks!
Carrying paddy from the paddy fields to the paddy pots,
pots to the oven. Oven to the mill.
The animals of the flower-bed night bathe
the cattle, feed the cattle, smell of cow urine.
Love. Who calls its obtuse name? The clarinet calls.
At the midnight play, Majnun bawls. The girl, too, weeps with him.
Till her man appears. To bring her — to bed.
Till the birds cackle, the sun appears. The girl wakes up to sweep
the floor for another ten years.
Now when the cowshed is clean, her daughter goes there to read.
(The poem was first published in the May 2023 issue of Poetry India: https://www.ethosliterary.org/poetry-india/may-2023-issue/poems-by-arun-paria)
arunparia 