{"id":8135,"date":"2022-12-15T22:03:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T22:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=8135"},"modified":"2022-12-15T22:03:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T22:03:31","slug":"drunk-i-am-today-a-poem-by-bhuwan-thapaliya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/drunk-i-am-today-a-poem-by-bhuwan-thapaliya\/","title":{"rendered":"Drunk I am today. A Poem by -Bhuwan Thapaliya"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\nDrunk I am today,\r\n\r\nO\u2019 you little tender world.\r\n\r\nWith the book of life open before me,\r\n\r\nthwarted, blank, I sit here before you all.\r\n\r\nImmersed in myself, I am in the Tundikhel,\r\n\r\nfloating between medieval and modern times.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nA peanut seller came with a basket of peanuts\r\n\r\nand sat beside me.  He gave me, a handful of peanuts\r\n\r\nin a colorful piece of paper.  I tossed the peanuts\r\n\r\ninto the air, and started reading  the paper instead.\r\n\r\nThe peanut seller smiled and waved me goodbye,\r\n\r\nsaying, \u201cYou are drunk, very drunk today, my friend!\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\n\u201cIn remote western Nepal,\r\n\r\npeople heard the Beatles\r\n\r\non battery-powered tape decks\r\n\r\nbefore they saw electric lights,\r\n\r\nand helicopters fluttered\r\n\r\n\u00a0into their lives\r\n\r\n\u00a0long before the first trucks got there,\u201d\r\n\r\nthese sentences rose from their slumber\r\n\r\n\u00a0and stirred my heart.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe first airplane landed in Nepal in 1949\r\n\r\nbut it was seven years later before\r\n\r\nthe first highway connected Kathmandu\r\n\r\n\u00a0to the outside world.\r\n\r\nWithin a year of that first landing,\r\n\r\nthe Rana autocracy was overthrown\r\n\r\nwith the aid of an airplane.\u201d\r\n\r\nThese sentences came out\r\n\r\nfrom the paper, and grappled my throat.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nI stood up\r\n\r\nbut the gravity\r\n\r\nof the revelation pulled me down.\r\n\r\nI was now drunk, dead drunk\r\n\r\nwith a million pegs worth of thoughts.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nI sat on the grass for a while,\r\n\r\nthinking about old Nepal\r\n\r\nand my grandfather\u2019s life then.\r\n\r\nThen I shifted my thoughts\r\n\r\nover to the New Nepal\r\n\r\nwe claim to be building now.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nWhere are the roots of the new Nepal\r\n\r\nwe claim to be building?\r\n\r\nWhere are the roots?\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nWith a million thoughts\r\n\r\nin my head,\r\n\r\nI headed to my home\r\n\r\ndusting the bare bodies\r\n\r\nof the erotic sculptures\r\n\r\non the multi-tiered pagodas\r\n\r\nof  hope.\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\nYes, drunk I am today.\r\n\r\nToday I am drunk.\r\n\r\nWith the book of life open before me,\r\n\r\nthwarted, blank, I sit here before you all. <\/pre>\n
 
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Nepalese poet, Bhuwan Thapaliya <\/strong>works as an economist, and is the author of four poetry collections and currently he is working on his fresh poetry collection, The Marching Millions. Thapaliya\u2019s books include, Safa Tempo: Poems New and Selected<\/em> (Nirala Publication, New Delhi), Our Nepal, Our Pride <\/em>, Verses from the Himalayas and Rhythm of the Heart.<\/em> (Cyberwit.net)Poetry by Thapaliya has been included in The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry, The Strand Book of International Poets 2010, and Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry, as well as in literary journals such as Urhalpool, MahMag, Kritya, FOLLY, The Vallance Review, Nuvein Magazine, Foundling Review, Poetry Life and Times, Poets Against the War, Voices in Wartime, Taj Mahal Review, VOICES (Education Project), Longfellow Literary Project, Countercurrents etc.  Author: Safa Tempo: Poems New & Selected<\/strong><\/a> & Our Nepal, Our Pride<\/strong> <\/a>
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\nRobin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times<\/a> at Artvilla.com <\/a>; You may visit Aquillrelle.com\/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop <\/a> about author & https:\/\/poetrylifeandtimes.com<\/a> See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)<\/a><\/p>\n
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Drunk I am today, O\u2019 you little tender world. With the book of life open before me, thwarted, blank, I sit here before you all. Immersed in myself, I am in the Tundikhel, floating between medieval and modern times. \u00a0 A peanut seller came with a basket of peanuts and sat beside me. He gave … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,808,796,366,401,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8137,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135\/revisions\/8137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}