universal poet beyond time imprints

UNIVERSAL POET: BEYOND TIME IMPRINTS

Vijayakumar Kunissery


In the womb of the dark ages
Sprang radiant poetry
From the slice of sky’s vast expanse
Alight the seeds of echo
Amidst the deluge of flaring flames
Stands the immortal great tree-.
Roosting on the branches of sentamil
The black crows, the sparrows and ghostly birds of prey
Recite the sweet Tamil Koel song!
Bharati’ has the magic touch!

The wounded soul of the humane poet
Revolved as satellite in space -
His prying eyes
Saw plants, creepers, and birds
Animals, humans and insects –
And from the oozing blood, drips the golden words
Turn into universal benign poetry

The bandicoot and chameleon poets
The betraying spies of the invaders
Fattened themselves in secret bunkers
The universal poet holding the kali’s trident
Plays parasakhthi – Against the Other

Out of the burning pangs
The revolutionary poet who broke his sacred thread
To adorn the outcasts
Drowned in the bitter depths of alienation
In the soil imprinted by the poet’s footsteps of pyre stands
The great barrier of religious persecution – Dalit oppression.



- 2 -


The sun and moon – the eyes of Bharati prevails
A unified world without boundaries
A world devoid of slaves in golden collars and silver chains
A world devoid of money power hankering Lucifers-
The least a man is denied of his food
Let “s all destroy this world.


The sound of the thunderbolt of liberation in the firmament
Against the black clouds of colonization
The poet’s sound echoes beyond his times
An eternal fiery granite sculpture
The fifth guarding column of democracy -
Let” s dance let’s sing the ballads in ecstasy
For the vision of independence we ‘ve foreseen


Quitting the dance, song left the stage to
A great journey to the Netherworld
A great poem is burning in the funeral pyre
Witnessed by fourteen souls
They were not men
Icons from the mythological fourteen worlds.

This Dark Age
The squeezing image of the black disease of globalization
Bharathi resurrected into his pen, raised it to create
The omnipotent destruction from his poetic rendering -
Which black vulture
Longs to hatch and swallow
The embryonic globe?
Which Lucifer
Hides to igniteThe racial ravaging fire
To massacre?




- 3 -


Which political terror groups
Lurks in secret den
To bury the peace of the World?
Which sword of environmental destruction
Aims to slay the Mother Cosmos?
In whose evil hands are the keys
Of nuclear, chemical, biological warfare
That will char the sprout of humanity?

Seeking the grass shoot
That germinates
After every great deluge
The bird of liberation
Encircles the firmament
The Laws of Cosmos in
The all-pervading multitude.


( Rendered by: Dr. Preethi Nair )






Note: The above poem is the English text of the Malayalam poetry, titled
‘Prapanja Kaviyude KalaMudrakal’ was recited in the Subramanya
Bharati 125th Birth Anniversary Nationar Seminar, Multilingual poet
meet held at Ethiraj College, Chennai on 9th January 2008.