I Want to Chop the Moon into Tiny Pieces
We compose songs on a moonlit night, we sing humobauli and play hide
and seek, on a moonlit night, go to the jungle coupling with young women
and young men, we dance and celebrate surhul on a moonlit night.
You weaponised that moon, centralising the moon to create heaps
of literature; dabbling the spell on the moon from across the world
equated it to the face of your beloved and sometimes you plunged it
into the hands of tender Krishna, when he denied eating rice.
Of the night, and for the reign of the night, such a skullduggery
around the moon, the illusion of the moonlight is utter deception.
The whole planet has a cascade of moonlight now, and the moonlight is
lifting me up to the sky, how fascinating it is to see down from above!
How elegant are the tins, and asbestos of the displaced, thatched houses,
camps, and the fresh blood of Sukru Jani who was run over by a Vedant
vehicle, the snow-like whiteness—the bubbling dew; the face of
Kamala Majhi glitters even after she has been sucked, bitten, spit
and abandoned near the tent. The dam that has swallowed 108 villages
is a wavy white blanket; there’s no sorrow nor pain, and the cities,
villages, rivers, jungles and mountains are bathing in milk and butter.
You taught me, it’s good to go up from the land and from men to see the
earth. I’m obsessed with the charming substance of the moon, even
during the day placing the moonlight in my pocket, I’m roaming around,
wherever I can, switching off the sun and I’m sowing the moonlight from my
pocket, miles in every direction; I float and as the sun rises at once, I find
myself on the ground and I see I have bought a bouquet with the money
I should have bought insulin for my father from Khaprakhol and I see all my
social science books are infested by termites, I’m kissing the naked idols of
temples like my beloved, reciting rain poetry to the washed-off germinations.
By this time, so many comrades have invoked me, they’ve gone since
long ago to slash the moon, the night and the darkness; some have
already been shot dead; I’m not able to move away from here, repeating—
lest the moon will sink, I’m not taking my feet at all off my place
look, the moon rises, look, look the moonlight is inundating,
look, the moonlight is about to lift me up. Strengthen me, embolden me
oh, my co-chevaliers. Lend me a knife, give me a cutter, else hand me
a pen, I want to chop this moon into tiny pieces, I’m going!