My mother's sheep
sleep blissfully on the tall haystack leaping to touch the moon. As I swirl a top of thirst in the sheep's starch fodder the sheep caresses me with its wet nose. The desire of my sleepless penis spreads a haystack in the courtyard. He befriends time in the winter night. The milk vessels my mother hid under the kitchen basin were the hiding place for sperms. A day comes, earth is blessed with saplings. Me, my haystack, god-faced sheep wander around sucking the nipples with lips tight on a hairy statistical table. Sunlight on the hedge seduces moist earth and rests on my pubic hair. It spreads red ink of dusk on white clothes. Mamma, can you feel the taste and speed of your baby sheep running into the pastures of moonlight licking your breath and sweat...? When I wake up in the haystack I see my parents with me eating the hay and leaves that covered their nakedness. We keep chewing on last night's moonlight with our strong teeth. M R Vishnuprasad Translated by Ratheesh Ravindran
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Born in a city of gamblers
Roads are like the snake and ladder game. Srirangam lane though close to my rented house, vanished many a times forcing me to eat the pills of madness. Though I thought I will improve my attire, the tailor’s face defies all my wisdom. The way he cuts clothes shakes me to bits. Do you understand why I stand and weep in front of the tailor’s shop leaning on a lamp post? As I walk past the man making pineapple juice inside a mixer and walk into the underground library, I can imagine a large tree falling down with a huge thud. Wait, I refuse to think so. I am not such a person. I was stabbed with a syringe infected with the virus of existence. That is why even after death there is a concert of life in my veins. The empty pages in the underground library soothes my retina. That is why I embrace emptiness rather being a reader. Still I wish I could walk through Srirangam lane reading the sign boards of shops. I play snake and ladder every evening inside the library in the city of gamblers. Even after my death there will be a concert of life in my veins. M R Vishnuprasad Translated by Ratheesh Ravindran In the midst of the
fifth period our class teacher turns into a spider woman. Rubbing off the chalk powder she clings onto the wall. When she teaches us hanging at the point where the wall and ceiling meets, we get the importance of crawling and hanging upside down. We also learn that trick. On the walls and the ceiling we keep crawling. Sitting there we do math, weaves a web, recites poetry, catches prey. In the end we learn our classroom is inside ourselves. Whenever needed from the left wall to the corner of the almirah we stretch the web. M.R.Vishnuprasad Translated by Ratheesh Ravindran Do you remember,
a midnight in a boat ride we met. You sat on one end, me on the other, we sailed into the island. The shadow of our destination came to swallow the boat. When the clothes were stripped and thrown into the moon, suddenly you became a man and I, a woman. In the mid-way the boat vanished. In the place of your organ my organ took position, thereafter we swam together merrily on the graffiti of moss. When I kissed you, I kissed myself. On the riverbed when my vagina bled, the sand in your look burnt my insides. Without swaying away in the current, licking with my tongue on your genitals I tasted lotus bud and wild potato. When I parted my legs, a bunch of snails and crabs swam down into the water. The shores keep fading away. River turns into an octopus. M R Vishnuprasad Translated by Ratheesh Ravindran |