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Woman by Arun Kolatkar


a woman may collect cats read thrillers
her insomnia may seep through the great walls of history
a lizard may paralyze her
a sewing machine may bend her
moonlight may intercept the bangle
circling her wrist

a woman my name her cats
the circulating library
may lend her new thrillers
a spiked man may impale her
a woman may add
a new recipe to her scrapbook

judiciously distilling her whimper the city lights
may declare it null and void
in a prodigious weather
above a darkling woman
surgeons may shoot up and explode
in a weather fraught with forceps
woman may damn
man

a woman may shave her legs regularly
a woman may take up landscape painting
a woman may poison
twenty three cockroaches

- a poem by Arun Kolatkar from year 1967. Translated by Adil Jussawalla. Found it in New Writing in India (1974) ed. by Adil Jussawalla.
 
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Comments

  1. GeetaliJul 5, 2009, 10:45:00 PM

    I can see that I'm going to have to check into your blog every day. Compulsively. You just quoted a very rare creation by one of my most favourite poets & totally made my day.
    Bravo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vinayak RazdanJul 6, 2009, 7:18:00 PM

    Glad you liked it!

    ReplyDelete

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