Laxmi Prasad Devkota
The Lunatic
1.
Oh yes, friend! I’m crazy-
that’s just the way I am.
2.
I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect.
Stones I see as flowers
lying water-smoothed by the water’s edge,
rocks of tender forms
in the moonlight
when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,
putting out leaves, softening, glistening,
throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,
like flowers, a kind of moon-bird’s flowers.
I talk to them the way they talk to me,
a language, friend,
that can’t be written or printed or spoken,
can’t be understood, can’t be heard.
Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,
ripple by ripple-
oh yes, friend! I’m crazy-
that’s just the way I am.
3.
You’re clever, quick with words,
your exact equations are right forever and ever.
But in my arithmetic, take one from one-
and there’s still one left.
You get along with five senses,
I with a sixth.
You have a brain, friend,
I have a heart.
A rose is just a rose to you-
to me it’s Helen and Padmini.
You are forceful prose
I liquid verse.
When you freeze I melt,
When you’re clear I get muddled
and then it works the other way around.
Your world is solid,
mine vapor,
yours coarse, mine subtle.
You think a stone reality;
harsh cruelty is real for you.
I try to catch a dream,
the way you grasp the rounded truth of cold, sweet coin.
I have the sharpness of the thorn,
you of gold and diamonds.
You think the hills are mute-
I call them eloquent.
Oh yes, friend!
I’m free in my inebriation-
that’s just the way I am.
4.
In the cold of the month of winter
I sat
warming to the first white heat of the star.
the world called me drifty.
When they saw me staring blankly for seven days
after I came back from the burning ghats
they said I was a spook.
When I saw the first marks of the snows of time
in a beautiful woman’s hair
I wept for three days.
When the Buddha touched my soul
they said I was raving.
They called me a lunatic because I danced
when I heard the first spring cuckoo.
One dead-quite moon night
breathless I leapt to my feet,
filled with the pain of destruction.
On that occasion the fools
put me in the stocks,
One day I sang with the storm-
the wise men
sent me off to Ranchi.
Realizing that same day I myself would die
I stretched out on my bed.
A friend came along and pinched me hard
and said, Hey, madman,
your flesh isn’t dead yet!
For years these things went on.
I’m crazy, friend-
that’s just the way I am.
5.
I called the Navab’s wine blood,
the painted whore a corpse,
and the king a pauper.
I attacked Alexander with insults,
and denounced the so-called great souls.
The lowly I have raised on the bridge of praise
to the seventh heaven.
Your learned pandit is my great fool,
your heaven my hell,
your gold my iron,
friend! Your piety my sin.
Where you see yourself as brilliant
I find you a dolt.
Your rise, friend-my decline.
That’s the way our values are mixed up,
friend!
Your whole world is a hair to me.
Oh yes, friend, I’m moonstruck through and through-
moonstruck!
That’s just the way I am.
6.
I see the blind man as the people’s guide,
the ascetic in his cave a deserter;
those who act in the theater of lies
I see as dark buffoons.
Those who fail I find successful,
and progress only backsliding.
am I squint-eyed,
Or just crazy?
Friend, I’m crazy.
Look at the withered tongues of shameless leaders,
The dance of the whores
At breaking the backbone on the people’s rights.
When the sparrow-headed newsprint spreads its black lies
In a web of falsehood
To challenge Reason-the hero in myself-
My cheeks turn red, friend,
red as molten coal.
When simple people drink dark poison with their ears
Thinking it nectar-
and right before my eyes, friend!-
then every hair on my body stands up stiff
as the Gorgon’s serpent hair-
every hair on me maddened!
When I see the tiger daring to eat the deer, friend,
or the big fish the little,
then into my rotten bones there comes
the terrible strength of the soul of Dadhichi
and tries to speak, friend,
like the stormy day crashing down from heaven with the lightning.
When man regards a man
as not a man, friend,
then my teeth grind together, all thirty-two,
top and bottom jaws,
like the teeth of Bhimasena.
And then
red with rage my eyeballs rool
round and round, with one sweep
like a lashing flame
taking in this inhuman human world.
My organs leap out of theirs frames-
uproar! Uproar!
my breathing becomes a storm,
my face distorted, my brain on fire, friend!
with a fire like those that burn beneath the sea,
like the fire that devours the forests,
frenzied, friend!
as one who would swallow the wide world raw.
Oh yes, my friend,
the beautiful chakora am I,
destroyer of the ugly,
both tender and cruel,
the bird that steals the heaven’s fire,
child of the tempest,
spew of the insane volcano,
terror incarnate.
Oh yes, friend,
my brain is whirling, whirling-
that’s just the way I am.
— Translation of “Pagal” by Devkota himself.
Give Me (extract)
Give me a world sans hills and gulfs, where people are same
Give me a world that cries not in cages but flies with freedom
towards the sky full of light
Let creation spring in volley in the light of reason
Tireless be innovations; inventions be profound
Let ugliness be derided and beauty eulogized,
Let rulers conform to people’s will, and fiddles be defiled.
The Beast (excerpt)
Man might be trampled and crushed,
who cares?
Eyes are red with rippling might
Mind’s filled with billion atoms
of fuming rage
Explosive are the sounds, fatal
in follies rooted
Why should I heed to the world—
a feeder of turf I am.
I am a crooked tomcat
I am a beast.
Pity is a weakness
so, bellow! bellow!
until babies fear their birth
and the earth in terror squirm
I puke fire; roast civilization
grilling them all
for, I am a beast,
hark, I roar!
Rice, Lentils and the Green Stalks (excerpt)
In the grand woods of conscience
man, beasts and the birds sing
the same song in a truthful tone—
that its absence is the end of glory
leading all to fall and decay
it’s the beat of the global heart
rice, lentils and the green stalks
—the basic food.
When for its want, panic emanates
revolutions might come about
or apocalypse, and the heart might wail;
Will the first base of civilization endure?
Why should we be, in vain, hiding?
Rice, lentils and the green stalk, the basic food.
Those who do not see this are conceited;
celebrating the glory of darkness.
Reckon if you will! Those who fight, die for it
and work for it.
Its nationalization is today’s prime task;
This is the problem of our age.
A leader, ignorant of this, is a sheep;
can he deliver the nation?
The Latch (excerpt)
What’s that dividing man from man
raising a hiatus between them?
It’s none but insidious latch
made of silver and of paper
that’s alive forever and ever
Isn’t true heart a power in itself?
Can’t the laity make a state?
Can’t a home be made of soil?
Mistrust is the biggest blunder
loot its worth, as fire engulfs.
Why have you placed
a golden latch in your heart?
O, the wretched, why are you torn
by false vows the heart makes?
Cash maintains people’s rule; cash divides it
as a leader, it’s cash that grabs;
Oh, why does every one bear such folly?
Unite, poor; unite, wretched!
Come together, all the helpless
come, unite, all the needy;
uproot and fling the latch.
Freedom Is But Humanity (excerpt)
The practice of exploitation worships it in vain
Class-interests distort, blemish its essence.
When man is not manly with others, who can tell?
Balance among stars first sways in such ways.
When man drags, like a monkey, with noose on the neck
Man buys fellow beings, when shrewd he is in this art
With bread on the left palm and sword in the right
I invoke God with a parched belly, as the heart quivers
Man and his thoughts always rest on the pelf, oh, ever.
Oh, the rogue; it knows even the invisible!
Freedom is but humanity!
Grab the arms and tools, implements and spade!
If you move your fist, you can crush the word torn with hunger and ailment
If the mass right is averted by an individual, who will know of it?
The true heart of freedom is but equality and humanity
Open eyes and strong heart – traits of a complete man.
Freedom is but humanity.
Asia (excerpt)
O, ever exploited! Ever blotted!
Wake up, rise!
Take the creative force of billions; move towards prosperity.
Spell the words of universal compassion
and the voice of world peace—
O, Queen of the continent!
China is your glorious son, awaken with a lion’s valor
Russia with its vast land-expanse, a global victor in science.
It’s the Queen on the earth
At whose presence, entire humanity trembles
Some beastly powers threaten with nuclear arms
But you have to carry the lamp of hope
And a plate of elixir.
You have to invent golden laws, flapping wings of love.
O great messenger of world peace,
Wake up; it’s morning now.
Yes It’s Bullet (excerpt)
Yes, it’s bullet
that whispers close in the ears the voice of war.
Today— it’s just an invitation;
Tomorrow is the day of arson.
Call for dal-bhat, a square meal, and shelter
a thin cover on the naked bodies of the Nepalis
Human right and human hope!
This is the step, this is the step, this is the step
this is the power of hunger
a surge of thirst.
Pounding the doors of humanity, it’s a knock, it’s a stroke
It trumpets with the pipe of life
“Chase the fog; chase the fog!”
It’s a new light
A volcano of pain; a call for justice.
It won’t go in vain;
march ahead, march ahead.
One day, over the Nepalese head
the sky will clear out
and the age shall assume new attires.
The Traveler (excerpt)
Which temple are you bound, to which shrine would you go?
Which stuff would you offer, how would you be talking along?
Which pilgrimage would you visit, riding on men’s shoulders?
Pillars made of bone, and walls of tissues
Golden roofs of brain, entrances of organs!
Veins are rivers carrying fluid, temple beyond telling!
Which temple are you bound, traveler? Towards which doors?
Seated upon a golden throne, Jagadishwar rules the world
Crown of his head is nothing, but the precious intellect
Body is the temple divine, in the expanse of the world.
God is a fellow-travelers, walking together on the roads
He kisses hands that are always engaged in works
With magical hands he touches, hands of those who serve.
Return, return and hold the feet of the people!
Apply balm on the ever-aching wounds of the poor
As man, bedeck the divine countenance of God.