1
Dropped from the sky
Crimson red
Broken moon in pieces,
Blood? In deep red serum?
Plasma never thickens
Gushing from the stream,
Man inserts his hand inside
His own hand, the very own,
Convinced, the hand of God too.
Eyes swelling up, the moon
Cries in acute pain
O! Blood Moon! O! Blood Moon!
In the deep forest, on the grass,
They smashed her face,
Her tongue frayed,
They cracked her closed knees.
Five men busy cutting her breasts.
Keen sharp long teeth
Pierced through woman’s body.
Never meek and shy,
Shame blazes itself
Torching yourself each day,
Pray, you spring to be the weapon.
2
The girl was a Muslim.
Just a girl, raped and raped
Wringed to be
Scrumptious meat.
The girl was a prisoner in the temple,
The goddess was then the stone,
The deity then spoke of Kunti,
Deliberating.
Folks and the fiends,
And the treaty was made
With all the pious
Beasts and the monsters.
Alone, behind the bars of the temple
Blood, phlegm, semen, thighs spread.
Hunger, grief, horror,
Hair, teeth, nails.
Excruciating, Ah!
O! holy raped daughter,
You are mine,
I am for you.
Then?
Heaven for you when you die,
Heaven for me.
Only you and I in this life
Presume.
A Muslim’s hell or Hindu’s,
Which one exactly?
Truth, the rapist has no religion
Nor the raped.
This poem was translated from Bengali with the poet’s consent by Dr Mousumi Dutta Ray.
