Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










CITY OF GOLD by Kunwar Narain, translated by Apurva Narain

This settling sediment of self-pity,
in perspective, is not life 
but short-lived colour 
coated on the rut of life
that kept flaking off
 
Sundered into the useful and useless, 
the zodiac result of one’s doing
slavering over one’s own bonhomie. 
That which happens daily
but does not pass. An experience— 
many experiences chewed dry, spat out
like hollowed hulls of words. A breathful
of fizz to flounder around,
to win that ground
for which horsemen had set out 
with so much fanfare 
marauding the air,
and the lord of heaven Indra
had also struck with meteors…
 
         Yes, I know that ground
         which airy clouds had drenched,
         and I am watching with blurry eyes
         that blazing sky 
         where centuries get scorched.
 
         That grey foggy gate of first victory 
         was a deception—the first deception—after which
         there was no city of gold,
         only a desolate return, dour as dust.
 


Excerpted from Witnesses of Remembrance: Selected Newer Poems, trans. Apurva Narain, Eka, Westland, 2021


KUNWAR NARAIN, TRANSLATED BY APURVA NARAIN