Self-Portrait Poem by swapna bhattacharya

Self-Portrait
Syed Kawsar Jamal

Whenever I open the unwritten pages of my autobiography
The words get crazy and the days are drained of light.
Didn't I tell you everything?
Didn't I write about the mysteries which were escorted
by clouds away from the sun and the wind?
I keep my fingers crossed
As somewhere the earth inside me is spinning all by itself
The life I did not lead is spread on the pages
The stains and bites of my anger spread casting shadows
On almost all of my poetry
On all my stances.
I move with the wrong profile of a man in my pocket
The moth-eaten flowers take refuse in my book
Inaudible is my voice
And there should be a beginning somewhere
Somewhere my self-portrait will write itself ignoring me.

(Translated from Bengali by the poet)