Dirty Words Poem by Veerankutty Kollanary

Poem

Dirty Words by

Veerankutty Kollanary


I was polishing and arranging pretty words
Composing a poem in rhythms.

From nowherea word appeared
with his windblown brown hair
nose running
a frightened gypsy
in an un fitting shirt,buttoned wrongly

claimed to bea dirty word
chased away by others
nobody allowed him into their homes
never ventured to enter any writings

Longedto caresssecretly
Oh, dirty word!
During how many troubles you boiled over in our tongues!

When you danced with fury on the tongue
The dagger that intended to stab you
turned to be a nail cutter
The hand intendedto beat you
longed to embrace you.

What other mother-tongue is there
For sharingthe secrets?

You made the soul naked
igniting the lust.

While cursing with thousand tongues
wished that you would dance within us.

" Enough is enough"trying to get out, it said:
" In spite of keep consoling me,
Even you didn't give me a place in poetry ever .
The multi-storeytowers that you built with metaphors
will be consumed by thesea.
In secretplaces, my caves will persist."
That sound echoed loudly,
with the footsteps of a prehistoric animal
I saw it entering the forest of language.

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Translated from From Malayalam by Dr. Playiparambil Muhammad Ali(UK) .