THREE CHEERS FOR MAN
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SRI SRI
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Three cheers for the man who walks the bridge lonelily;
who gives the small change out of his pocket to a
begger; who sees a nurse coming in the opposite
direction and gives her his wrist watch;
who takes off his coat and throws it into the
water; who throws himself off, following the coat,
into water.
Three cheers for the man who is a businessman who is a
busy busy businessman; whose hands sprout trees
whose branches bleed pelf; which lays golden eggs in
the bank; and the eggs shed incessant tears.
Cheers for the man who sits silently near a milestone;
who every minute expects someone who never comes;
who counts the cars and buses and goes on eating
peanuts; who looks at a cloud and forgets the time.
Hurrah for the man who goes about carrying a ladder;
whose bag contains duck eggs; who places a ladder
against a wall; who goes up the ladder and throws
an egg in the face of the sky; he it is who buys the
truth with gold stacked to the height reached by the
egg.
*** Cheers for the man who searches for holes;
it does not matter that their sizes differ.
Three cheers for the man who has anarchy for sale;
whose long arms grope in several directions;
who eats nothing except fresh lemons floating in the
lakes of blood in the hearts of the very young.
(It has to be mentioned that he eats them only once
a day.)
Three cheers for the man who kills time by beating time;
who has with him a vina (not to mention that this
is not necessary); whose fingers create music;
at whose touch the stars catch fire and the lakes in
the moon begin to boil and the winter in my heart
proposes marriage to the butterfly.
Cheers for the man whose eyes are bleeding, whose
cheeks are burning. He is a poet. He has a job in
the Air Force decoding secret messages spun out
of thin air. He is the usual cause for every crack
and crash of the money market.
Cheers for the man who is counting beads; who thinks with
his tummy. There is no use in my saying there is no
use breaking coconuts before his feet.
Hurrah for the man who loves a woman. She is his one and
she is his only. She dies. Follow the rest of the
story in the next installment.
Cheers for the man who is hanged. Justice is assured,
peace is secured, at the expense of his life.
Law is no longer outlaw. No significance need be
attached to the fact that every evening at the place
where his blood was shed, a one-eyed puppy feebly
moans. This man is so proud he is willing to tell
anyone that he is unjustly hanged.
***** Cheers for the man who is big by inflation or small by
confusion (due to drink, possibly).
Cheers for the man who makes some things and to him
who steals them.
*********Cheers for the man who goes underground or overseas.
Cheers for the man who weds, the man who sleeps,
the man who weeps and the man who laughs.
One man's weeping makes you laugh.
Another man's laughter makes you weep.
Any number of exaples can be cited to prove this.
---But, will this never end?
---No, this will never end.
(Written and Translated by
Amarakavi Srirangam Srinivasarao)
(borrowed from Telugu Paluku, 4th North America Telugu Conference.
Washington, 1983)
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POSTED TO NURTURE REAL TELUGU LITERATURE IN THE NORTH AMERICA.
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SRI SRI DID NOT BUILD A SHINY SHOWCASE OF POETIC CRAFTMANSHIP.
A DAY OLD TELUGU INFANT CAN EVEN UNDERSTAND AND ENJOY HIS POETRY!
THIS IS A FACT!
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed above are not those of the CAS.
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