Homeless Gamblers Poem by Pradip Saikia

Your clappings and the tinklings of stashed heavy coins
My winter food

I sing song of tears of unemployed
In the garden of the inn
After the fasting of summer

O my benevolent sponsor and gambling mates
In the gradually brightening candle-stand my face slowly dying out

A pair of hands of a torn shirt
And an empty wine bottle

Is looking at your dazzling batting of the eyelid

My faithful pen belched
The epic story of your war march
You fall asleep in the boiling source of satisfaction

And by the boon of hunger and the sky
I build the house of storm
With a pair of reeds
In the hyacinth infested swamp

# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury