Now In Stockholm

Last evening I arrived in Stockholm.I am quiet enjoying this cold and I think I got myself over prepared for this winter chill.My stay now is sponsored by Kamini Press. Thanks Henry my friend.This evening I will be doing the poetry reading and workshop at the Kulturhuset, Stockholm.

Interview

My poet friend Sreedhar Mukherjee is translating my interview in English which was published by Poetry Campus early this year. Thank you my friend !!! It will be posted here once it is done.

The Field Of Magic Fires

I crossed over the field of magic fires to arrive...

By the banks of Ajoy, Jaideb vanishes into the blue

New poem in Up the Staircase.....


http://www.upthestaircase.org/subhankardasissue11.htm

Those Never Rain Cities

I will take a Taxi-cab to the moon

Celebrating the 40th Issue of Danse Macabre

Two of my poems

Once More For Lucy And For All Radio Stations

AND

A little more than the river Khorkai

From the bunker of this life

Sinuous snakes have toyed with our words.
Hands tremble in warmth – drip drop, the stones of sweat,
Love, love like incantation – the words,
Why did you shut your eyes because you missed it on the T.V.?
If everything were true, we could err,
We allowed scope for mistakes, but we shall not, for that reason
Abandon this body to wander anywhere else.
You shall be claimed for your own sake – this compulsion
simmers in the fire. Grant us shade. Unrelentingly
trample us – pure companion shadow – like a woman flowing!
When my armour gets scorched, heap more punishment.
No routes are left open except to swell the ranks.
Cold, clammy coils of snakes foreclose the streets of this birth.
This, my bunker-room, windowless and dark.
Come up and die, come, come and buy your death.
So he looks at him and through him to another
of his likeness, a different string a different symphony that leads
still further into that selfsame identity. The light
lay cached at the bottle’s bottom and now by my will
the light shall break into fragments, turn into dust and then dissolve.
I remember it’s a long time that I have not seen you
by the fire lit by my rubbing hands. Our children
never saw light, they were blotted among wads of cotton.
Come up and die. Come, come and buy your death.
I shall arrest and send that day as witness.
They scale the high fortress and invade, attack with their fangs.
O mother, how are you now in this soft night, how do you keep your vigil
Beside my father, sick and dumb? Did he not yet perceive
It had been wrong to have asked the painted breeze
‘Where did you go?’ Hush here again cometh
Tearing through the window, the howl of all the winds
And stinging, burning rain, covering the body,
Here no room is left, yet cram within these confines
The wounds of the sky, the guileless strings of faces
Father, go and die.


So much blood seeps in secretly through the laughter
Silence! Finger on your lips, the limp hand is lost itself,
Fists unclench, they can’t be raised – listen, come inside my head
Take firm hold of the clammy hand so it cannot slip
away from your grasp. Skip across the shadows and gather
A gulp full of grass in the hollow of your palm,
Wrong, wrong, everything starts going wrong again. I feel nauseated.
Oh Lord! The tits will swing open if you tug at the pull-rings,
Mystiques shall be possibilities no more. The intimate searches
For gold shall launch no more expeditions.
Yet suspended in Mephistopheles time, the lunatics dangle.
Rip, rip apart, but still from within the laughter
so much blood wells up, like melting water,
something wanders round and round, not having known
how to come to a stop,
I strain all my cells to inflate the pillow
I bury my face and rise, buy my death and die.
This cold clung to his limbs. Look a light shines
I know about the flying-fish whose wings
Are guilt ridden, soaked in the breeze,
I wander about, in search of a door,
Twisted affection instead of a hand, paper documents,
These bones – possibly nothing, worthless, sampling in vain, although
All these realities stayed unchanged as ever,
The knocking keeps on at the door.
I would reach to touch you, but the rains are pressing, keeps falling on and on,
Through the nightlong vigil, walls and colors
Appear as a game. Why do they go away, away,
the streets, the bubbles of grass?



Unless you close your eyes tomorrow holds out
Nothing. No color, no day, no money,
Time seeps away gazing at the pictures.



In order that I may stay with you
The storm and the rains arrived,
Oh blackness
I shall never be able to go out anymore,
After the tumultuous sounds the long algae are lying
without animation.



They have sent the secret papilions of pus. Smoke from streets rises and burns. Ashes of wisdom lie in chaos. No insect shall protect these thought sorrows. The plug for this growth is linked to the switch. Light, light, why there is so much light?



Every time it’s me who is the sinner
Because I am responsible, the rain drops do not fall.
The blood he recalls, may be, may be not
Only why somewhere deep inside do you get born, you light!
Find out your pus again, papilion,
I crossed over the field of magic fires to arrive,
All night burnt through to spot the marks of grass
If something more transcending there form should rise
As I put my hand on the vertebrae of grasses
Some polish came off into my hand. Green grass polish.
So long? Where had you been?
Nobody kept accounts of those days.
When this room, so daintily set, was profuse with sunshine,
Flower, you paid no heed to the evening.
Accountability should of course look green,
These colors of hell and of the sky are hung on the walls
So let the sunshine be snuffed. Come.
I do not want that you should get born, Radha,
I will buy and send death to you.

Brother Kalo And The Chickens

Brother Kalo once said it is good for digestion if you lie down on your left side. After having a sumptuous meal I use to wet my palm with water and moved it round and round my naval in clockwise motion chanting Agosto Agosto. From that time on to these days of indigestion this habit persists. In that one night two hundred chickens of Brother Kalo’s prized firm were dead. The chickens moved round and round shitting white like lime and died. For a few days chicken meat were in abundance. I was little afraid. But the greed for the meat was stronger than the fear of death. The chickens moved round and round shitting white like lime and died. I don’t believe in keeping any news of anybody. That is why I don’t know whether Brother Kalo is still alive or died moving round and round. If he is still alive, will die one day shitting white like lime. This write up does not have any obligations or responsibilities, even does not try to prove that I am the real junkie so I do not eat pie. After my father’s death he was kept on ice blocks so that my elder brother could come and see his dead body. A bed sheet was placed upon his body when we noticed he was having goose pimples from cold. You are supposed to touch the body and remain so until the final rites but the intense cold was almost freezing my balls. So I tied one end of a ribbon on his finger and held the other end ten feet away from his body and kept waiting for my big brother’s arrival. Before he lost consciousness I know my father’s head was also reeling like the chicken.

Once Upon A Time There Was A Man Named Bhetki

But I know for sure Bhetki cannot die.
My drunken poet friend
Whom poetry and liquor carried through
in these times of chaotic red stains of betel leaves
ever dripping from his perched lips.

He stopped writing poetry.
He stopped asking for a woman’s love.
He just said it is necessary to die now,
slanting his head on one side,
in the same way he use to say – come lets have some local hooch.

But I know for sure he is not dead.
He will come someday and we will do the last dance.

Drift

Death also walks alone
plays solitary football with brickbat
hides a lonesome tear drop yet in his mind
drifts the language hold yourself in this upsurge
be a little composed you will feel better
saying that I become restless
watching the drift to drift away
leaves behind the touch of solace pride attachment
I dislike you treating me as a beloved
As if you will be relieved if you can set yourself free
So this is the pleasure of attachment
The touches still remain so stupid unreasonable

Old Rust

When my head also reels I realize I have lived too long. It is necessary to die now – pat comes the inference of my friend, slanting his head on one side, in the same way he use to say – come lets have some local hooch. In his face looms the darkness of the new butterfly lights of the coffee house maybe walking inside a dream I will wake up to find myself lying under a mosquito net in that triangular room with one hand raised. Caressing the roof of the mosquito net with my right hand. The mosquito net also has the smell of my mother. Like old rust. Very dear. Which feels up your senses. Not like the breath smelling of cigarettes now burning like gunpowder. Very soft and easy. But I know that triangular room does not exist anymore. Kept folded in a dream box in a memory. When I will return to that memory I will ask the forest that day – did he not catch the same smell. Oh my Buddha lying on its side. The city won’t see the birth of a forest anymore.

City Blues

Neon City colored surprised air. A deep acid wash-room
hugging boredom, someday wore needs immobility
smearing of visions, the market death


Graying house, broken depths, water they notice flipping in incense. The practice and that tired still game survived. Only needs. Hoping again. Promises knew dreams, streams of neon sea veins munching us up and you all soft uncertainty habit blotted confused.

A coke moving from not born roots to silver semen
stand there, complete delusion carry my ancient City
ruins born-still walls moments
Buddha’s rest and the plastic

Who the nightingale bites the eye

Sea foam was inside the room taming it
I have known conditions push over feelings of this life
where shall I catch hold of him
isn’t it killing itself talking in encirclement
face crooked even then so bitter the old man is stooping
revolution is complete
Revolution came and has gone without informing us
Signal calls while looking at this body he wants to know
how you are meanwhile wears the brain stable
our indecision covers perusal of the clouds
have not learned to roam around
that is why immaterial bohemian such family-world
then are awake crossed whereto which place
shadows spread on clouds one day there will be dawn
after enhancement in glow
wouldn’t care for purity time startled such a
restless life system
raw eyes where are the root bases
when is the exile knows that wound
takes hold of while talking who the nightingale bites the eye

That Boy

Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.


I don’t have a friend whom I can call my buddy. Cannot remember the names of those books which were my obsession once. Now nothing is dearest. Actually dear is such an empty word. Like a soundless night standing in silence. Arranged in stacks and rows dusty pale a little dull maybe. This heavy wooden table of my father is with me for a long time now. It was still with me after my sister lost one of her eyes from the prick of one of its corners. In these days of fix and deceit maybe this was the only silent pleasure the only dearest whom you cannot disgrace by repainting it.


You know nothing of love
You know nothing of love

Myebook - CRISSCROSSES

Myebook - CRISSCROSSES

For Bird

Stretched elongated chewing-gum for a day for a winter night

hanging haggardish better take care while talking about these

again the day returns. Love prompter of the shop

encircling the fountains one by one. Grass today

I wouldn’t be able to look at. Let this alphabet be ready

this sunlight and dust. On the sleeve

there were traces of flesh of previous life and thereafter

the cloud slept aslant oozing birds

hanging elongated whiteness even now within and outside

Two Of My Poerty Chaps Are Out Of Press

These two poetry chap books will be put up for sale in Kolkata Book Fair from tomorrow.A special thanks goes to Sharmy Pandey and Elli Griva whose paintings I have used for the cover pages.

Deernest

Those deer’s lonely moved into Nandan’s pastors
to sunbathe in neon lights knowing about
those love struck doe’s
with their coffee and coke
moving around confused
here and there, they stand like rain clouds knowing
the deepest cries like these rise from the heart
To have loved some deep music like these
Half broken insignificant tea cups of clay bend down upon the long
slowness of cement
Here smearing the chill of mineral water sits wise plastic
Here many a Jibanananda
died of boredom again and again slashed beneath the tram car wheals
Many a Falguni here
never could know the worth of his dick in life
In the blue darkness of coffee house they stick to the walls
Those weird bunch of old butterflies with their tentacles up
Colour of their wings peeling off and flying around
Passions of a few moments keep awake
like mica in the hair
Here the friends left all friendship and became Buddha
And in the coloured wind of glow signs
Someone keeps drumming a long bit
Slowly very slowly
A half wind remains caught like a breath
Books from those white men’s roads are lonely like death
Want to get into all dumb desires
Want to play in the blood of the brain
Promises of this life the meat and wine of love
Cuddling scathing my body and flipping death away
A little delusion of my own semen has survived
Only an illusion of the sap juice and blood
Whose dick keeps growing faster?
How large it has to grow to become an able man?
A sad, jealous beggar of the dick
rolled up the skin of mind and back
Nails that scratched the walls peeled off
or looking for new tricks to join upstream
Those love-struck doe’s surrendered to the hunters
all those deer’s roped them to their nerves of glee
through pleasure, all those old yellow book covers
dreams come and devastates
In that fire of the silver foil marathon man bends upon
Crossed a thousand miles and chases another foil
Though he was a poet and knew the despair of words

How undone is my home watching the clouds dressing up
Hoping for the rains to come
Ages passed
All of us became the family clown
Clowns long lived


This living is just for a few moments
Rest of it is wounded
Watching his heart running amok and die
One more dripping crow of one more dripping dawn
Pecking the body of an elongated time
One sunken foot enjoying the warmth
of the trampled bed linen


Thank god hate never had a demand
After so many days I love to hate her



Do Usman of Bundukgali still water those dried up roots
Does that incense of Tulsi’s body
still blooms in Tapoban, in the other Chitpur, everyday
Our penance ended a long time ago
Just counting the pauses of my heart
Moving my defeats away to put them to dry under the sun
So that they don’t become winter again



Its ages that I learned the chants
from Malabar Coast to remove darkness
And I let the shadows escape
Erased them in whiteness someday they will grow up
They will not remember a snail’s failure
Born out of these ruined city’s stray loves in the neon rain
Alphabets moves away floating
Undying deadness of those still grasses
Those who knew the fluid and blood someday
Wore the surprise, the sadness, the irritations on their body



Rows of teeth are born on my body
And those teeth keep munching and munching
And munching, slicing with their teeth
Flesh, bones, flesh
This living in life’s feed, its mistakes
And I am sinking deep in pounds of flesh
Just inside a corpse
Oh! City, in the City of my dreams
You clap your hands
Warming slowly in heat the lines in your palm
and asking them to try and fly
Here a storm in prison in a box shivers and quivers
Air is replaced by removing air
A complete deception begins to laugh once again
All those needs to live a good life
gets hammered in my head by someone
To live a good life one needs to practice living good
Like this city, another city of dreams remain



In the depths of my heart or
in all granules of blood the want that nests
became sugar became granules eating into the glow of my eyes
Here there isn’t any stream-hill like light
It will be said someday
Is despair like this only humans have known?
Or did it belong to the dogs, birds or in the swirling of a kite?
What I can do what I can’t, what I can think and I don’t
Everything I feared to do, to think, can even be done,
Be thought, even if in dreams
Since dreams in a way are wish fulfillments
Never dared to take up this courage this freedom
Even these alphabets do not carry that air
When I think of letters I remember the ink blotted
hard cold retreats of the letter presses
In the shadows of those shadowy dreams harks
the smell of their ancient coldness
Like those graying old photographs of ancient times
Or the nagging days that are stuck together
Such calculations were never in my blood



Hugging the wall I lie
Forcing my hands and feet inside
A part of love rests in the refuge of the wall
Around this soft uneven polish
Images memories stay awake
My loves and all defeats
Did you ever notice where exactly in the wash-room
hugging the wall you can rest your hands your head
stark alone?
Where is it kept the polish of that soft refuge?



Many a love in my life made me tired
Still see, I withdraw my gaze
And in secret lend my ear to her
Sinking the heart’s desires in my breath
my penance
So many illusory years of us burnt out
like birds floating their wings
Their pleasures have changed
They didn’t only think about possibilities of pains
This heart longed only to listen.
The count of colours kept changing
In the market of speech only their moustaches floats
Like the experiences of life like those fake dreams
We dipped our body in the sea like the Nulia braving the sea waves
We smuggled all those aged worn out stillness into our veins
That love struck deadliness stabbed in the veins of our wishes
plays in our blood keeps playing
Still they cannot play
From the surprised dead windows of this deer house
All the peeps move away the habit of waving a hand
And the failing visions the deepest immobility of the curtains
we have forgotten
This heart longs for many a carnival now suppressed thrills
I petted happily this game of uncertainty in my blood
Or since it needs to be petted I could not play
How many times I threw acid on its face
Melted pleasures withered away
In the precious love of ears and eyes mind and senses
I pour this intense light streams unnerved precision of words


Translated By Sarbajit Sarkar from Bangla



Notes
1. Nandan : The cultural hub in Kolkata, controlled and created by the
so called leftist local government of West Bengal.
2. Jibanananda : Poet
3. Falguni : Poet
4. Usman : A waiter in a local hooch pub
5. Tulsi : A famous whore
6. Tapoban : A place for prayer for sages in ancient times but we
named a house in the red light area where Tulsi resided
7. Nulia : A group of expert swimmers of the costal Puri who saves
people from drowning from the sea and can be hired.

Sailor’s Song

I do not have any love any affection for KT. Do not have the mindset
like the Hungryalists* to visualize it as a poet's pub and vouch for
it. Actually I do not get any kick out of drinking anymore. Still
getting sozzled in KT with local hooch so very many times I went to
the hermitage of Sonagachi *, drank adulterated local hooch on the
roof top and in the shades of the hermitage. Sitting on a chair I saw
the flux of colours pouring in through the front door of the coffee
house. Who took me out into this city of Kolkata and KT for the first
time to this city of eternal night? Subhash use to say—drink and be
well. After Subhash’s death I don’t feel like going to KT anymore or
to get well. So many days with so many friends, so many buddies hand
in hand, sometimes alone with boiled grams.Two watch mechanics were my partners in my noon sojourn and boiled grams, potatoes and onions deep fried in some kind of obscure oil tossed with red chili powder and salt or maybe a little food made by parching rice on hot sand and local hooch and water and tears in various assortments, manners and subjects. In that great mourning all the tears of my life has dried up.


Notes

Hungryalists : The writers of the Hungry movement, an underground
literary movement of Bengali literature of the 60’s.
Sonagachi : Infamous for its variety of whores.
Subhash : Hungryalist prose writer.

PLEASURE

Who wants to recover

As if to get back to the normal state

The sharpness of the smoke that burns the eyes will abate

Will the heart call all the birds and talk

Deliver a great speech about the usefulness of a heavy wing

All the muscles of the leg will one day know

all the artistry of a failed flight

As the white of the teeth becomes familiar with the

free and easy parched-peas like this

Ages passed on account of prestige and

position or weight and importance just like a dog

As the fear and the whiteleciousness pry at every step they

cannot get familiar

or knowing everything to enjoy defeat they munch on time

This very pleasure he also knew halogen lights lie like the moonlight

The accounts of the day are drying up

and we have decorated all sides with wings






Subhankar Das ©













PIACERE




Chi vuole guarire
Come a tornare allo stato normale
L’asprezza del fumo che brucia gli occhi si calmerà
Richiamerà il cuore tutti gli uccelli a parlare
Consegnando un grande discorso sull’inutilità di un’ala greve
Tutti i muscoli della gamba un giorno sapranno
della maestria di un volo fallito
Come il divenire intimo del bianco dei denti
con questi piselli riarsi
Gli anni passati per merito o prestigio
posizione o peso e importanza alla stregua di un cane
Mentre il timore e il delizioso biancore indiscreti ad ogni passo
non possono diventare intimi
o conoscere ogni cosa per godere della sconfitta rosicata sul tempo
Questo grande piacere conosceva anch’egli
Luci alogene mentono come il chiaro di luna
I conteggi del giorno si stanno a seccare
e noi ne abbiamo decorato ogni lato
con ali



Traduzione di Federica Nightingale

Testo originale scritto in Bangla