Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih Poems

Do not ask me the whys and the wherefores;
poetry is anoetic; you might as well question the rooster
or the plums, why they put on spring blossoms.
But how and when poetry first came to me?
...

Friends, kindred spirits, civilized people all…
I'm not here to defend evil or the Taliban.
“Behind the Veil” has exposed them as a
weird breed raising sabres against beards and TVs,
...

Like Shelley with his ‘blithe spirit',
I have often tried to understand
this man named Kynpham.
...

The madman of Laitumkhrah
goes to the local post office
to post his letter to the sky.
‘A letter to the sky, how much? '
...

Deep inside a pine forest,
we sought the mountain.

Between Sohpet Bneng, our holy mountain,
...

We groan under the weight of Corona
the disruptions it has brought
the fear it has instilled in every heart
the cruelties surging from that fear:
...

R. K. Narayan is dead.
Tonight, he sits, pensive,
in his bamboo chair
talking of a ‘very rare soul'.
...

Gestating, she warned me
not to kill anything.
That was what her ancestors,
the old Khasis, had taught her.
...

I could stay forever in this warm town
of grey dust and chaotic rickshaws,
learning lessons as from a book of fables.
...

Girl of the highway!
I remember you yanking my nose
calling it “a cute duck nose”.
I remember you carrying off my watch
...