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