Mannequin and Her Apparel, A Poem Composed by Bishwa Sigdel, translated from Nepali by Anjila Bista

 

After the swords gets bent

After the missiles gets misfired

Even if the atomic bomb swallows

And could not digest

The most delicate snippet of the third world

Snatching away the road and inserting into the market misguiding

As had initiated

How successful they are

It’s the lively example

Mannequin and her costume

 

Reposing bait-casting rod after each step

To make dried fish

Weaving the whole mortal in the stick

In crossroads

The mannequin is hoisted

Further from the countenance of the scarecrow

To distinguish their beauty

The aestheticians are attempting

Gathered in starred hotel

Reputed intellects accepting the allowance from the embassy

In contrivance the fourth fragment is publishing the thought analysis

“To perceive beauty

Eyes, we need eyes!”

 

Snatching strands from the millions of bodies

Turning the world more nude

The market is veiling the ignominy of the mannequin!

 

The son who has swallowed the market

Sent the hand-me-down of the mannequin

The mother knitting in the bamboo

Why did she erect in the mustard field?

Why that year

So much of the mustard seeds were saved

Unaware

The sons who are swallowing the market

They are swallowing the market

Or the market is swallowing them!

 

Dummies, the market is becoming full of!

 

From the body of thousands

Collecting thin strands

Woven are their netted costumes

Soaking the water from thousands of eyes

Amalgamated are the organic colours

Extracting the glow from the faces

Clothes are made to shine

To wash off the fragrance of the sweat

To make the doll of luxury

Dipped are they in the perfume

 

Not attire

Not at all is it to cover the body

In constructing innovative perilous armaments

To what extent the West has become proficient

Its paradigm

Mannequin and her costume!

 

Translated into English: Anjila Bista

Original poem in Nepali: Bishwa Sigdel