Monday, December 17, 2007

Poems by Malsawmi Jacob


Power of Words


I’ll go for words,

Words are my forte.


Words stab and jab,

Heal, hurt,

Mask, unmask,

Paint pictures.


Words

Create.

~~~


Longings


Longings

Undefined, inexpressible longings,

Fill you full of

Emptiness.


Wishes, wishes

Want a fairy’s wand.

~~~


Holding Hands


When he was little

I used to hold

His small chubby hand in mine

To steady him


Now he won’t let me.

He’s a big boy

And walks tall

Without his mother’s help.


Some day, when he becomes a man,

And I grow old and feeble,

Perhaps

He’ll hold my hands to steady me.

May be then

We’ll walk hand in hand again.

~~


Malsawmi Jacob writes poems both in English and Mizo. These are some of my personal favourites from Tinkim Dawn, a collection of Mizo and English Poems, published in 2003.


Picture: Abstract in oil and acrylic by Tanpuia, who owns an art gallery and also gives art classes at Canteen Kual, Aizawl. I thank him very much for freely allowing me to photograph his works.



7 comments:

  1. *BOWS*

    Great poem indeed. Malsawmi rocks!

    Dear Storyteller,
    please send me that sms again, about how you would want to be described at the directory... My phone crashed, thats one of the reason I wasn't online all these time... Lost all my msges :-(

    - Sandman

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  2. Dear Sandman

    its MRS.Malsawmi and she has a son who got married recently (in Bangalore) . so hands off. (both of them :) )

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  3. Great poems just the way I like 'em - short, sweet and full of meaning. 'Holding Hands' perfectly conveys the feelings of a parent. It was like 'you took the words right out of my mouth'. Damn, it should have been me writing that one. :) Thanks. Looking forward to more.

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  4. chaotic, yours is the first real feedback to any of these posts here so thank you! Though I'm not a parent myself I can relate to some of the sentiments expressed in Holding Hands which remind me of the Sunrise Sunset song from Fiddler on the Roof.."Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don't remember growing older. When did they?..."

    Funny thing about these short sweet meaningful poems is they make you think Oh I could have written this myself but when you get down to trying to actually write something, you realise it takes great skill to do it :)

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  5. Apart from skills, in a way I think its more of having talent, something that a person is born with - some people have it, some just don't. Otherwise we'd all be Malsawmi :)
    Fiddler on the Roof - isn't that the Liz Taylor movie? Watched that a long time ago - loved it.

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  6. love 'longing'. feel it illustrates 'lungleng' rather well.

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  7. i loved holding hands...

    well done >>

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