Thursday, December 24, 2009

GRAFFITI KOLKATA BROADSIDE # 03 # JAN 2010


We are back again with the new issue of GKB. We thank Yannis Livadas for editing and designing this issue.

A Very Happy New Year Friends !!! Celebrate with the new issue of GKB 03.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The giant’s hat

Jim Wittenberg


The giant’s hat fell on my house. I’m not sure if it accidentally dropped off his head or if he intentionally threw it away, but it covered my house entirely. I didn’t know what happened. Suddenly it was dark inside the house, and when I looked it was dark outside also. I had no idea what to do, and since none of my favorite tv shows was on I went to bed. Twelve hours later I woke up, looked out the window, and it was still dark.

I called the police and asked if they knew why the sky had gone black. They didn’t know what I was talking about since the sky above the police station was clear and blue. They thought I was crazy and hung up on me. I called them again but they had my number blocked. Then I called the mayor but she was in a meeting, and since I wasn’t anyone important her receptionist wouldn’t forward the message. Next I called the fire department, and since I lied to them and told them my cat was stuck in the tree they came to my house and discovered it was hidden beneath the giant’s hat. They were angry because I had phoned in a false alarm, and they decided to leave the hat where it was.

It’s been three days since the giant’s hat fell on my house. I’ve called the television and radio news people, but they think it’s a hoax. My eyes are getting accustomed to the darkness, and I’ve discovered that I can talk like Donald Duck. There still aren’t any good tv programs, and I’ve decided that I’m stupid because my only pleasure is scratching myself.

I hope the giant begins looking for his hat.


Born in 1956 in Placetas, Cuba, Jim Wittenberg was raised in Sacramento, California, USA, where he currently lives with his teenage daughter. He also has one son, one daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Jim began writing stories and poetry as a teenager.

"The giant's hat"was first posted on The New Absurdist website hosted by polycarp kusch.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Saturday, November 7, 2009

2 Paintings Of Sharmy Pandey





Sharmy Pandey is a young writer, artist and a film maker from Kolkata now working in Bombay.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Graffiti Kolkata Broadside # Celebration # The Flux Of Creative Light

A lone candle and Buddhist chant works as a backdrop for this GRAFFITI HAPPENING. Where poems chants colour drops like blood and paint and brushes and the scream of the silence and the warmth of the red light gets intermingled to create the magic of this evening of words dipped in wine. The atmosphere was electric as the poets Swadesh Misra, Somnath Ghosal, Sharmy Pandey and Subhankar Das read from their works in the Other Celebration of the release of GRAFFITI KOLKATA BROADSIDE Issue 01 NOV 09 on NOV 01,2009. Camera incantations by Arunabh Banerjee.

Please scroll down to see the slide show.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Works Of Elli Griva




Elli Griva is a major young artist who lives and works in Athens.



SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2009:’’Yes. The Bound Home.’’
Art gallery: Astrolavos, Athens.

2008: ’’I want you’’
Art gallery: ART-SPACE, Santorin

2007: ’’I want you’’
Art gallery: Nees Morfes, Athens.

2007:’’I want you’’
Art gallery: National gallery of Napoli, Napoli.

2007: ’’I want you’’
Art gallery: IONOS, Karditsa.


2006: Why don’t you play with me?
Bar Hoxton, Gazi,Athens.

2004: Oh!!!What a wonderful world!!!
Art gallery: Tricky trick Art, Athens.

2003: It flies…It flies…
Art gallery: Statement, Athens.

2001: Oh!!!What a wonderful world!!!
Art gallery: Paratiritis, Thessalonica.

2000: Why don’t you play with me?
Art gallery: Ios, Athens.

1998: Paintings
Art gallery: In the Fine Art + Art café Grotesque,Thessalonica.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

APTERAL NIKE (Part 1.)



By Yannis Livadas



Night from within night
We change hands like a coin
Modern elements
Our sprouted laughter
The movement of the gulls away
From the sea
Some waves reach perfection
The eye of the orphic raft
Is glancing eyeless and unsuited to the sinkage
I’m in a state of alert
I’m aware of my interest
Same as the night
I waste no minute
A cogwheel falls in the sink
I’m breaking down in front of the mirror with a
Creative annulment:
The oncoming man.
Sky threads sew me
Into the cavities of time
I’m the tree of the remedies
With roots in the western and the eastern poles
I’m the weather in the most fearful cities
A radio transistor in the shantytown a luster
Of bronze to the childless palace
A command forgotten
A map folded
The first apple of history
Ever learning from the venerable propaganda's of the souls
In the buildings of intellection
I make fun
Stagger
Otherwise
I’m extending
I open.

Under certain circumstances
Beauty continues
The light the bombshells the balloons
But nothing from all these does not thrill as much as
The sun disks between the shopping
The statue of a liberty at the feet of some eros
I’m loaded with scandals that take form
Like mandalas
Upper and lower levels
Messages of life like tidewater

Iridescence that give you fear for seconds
Meanings with not even a poem
Thumps when you are absent on the door
Death in the roses under the cold
Lights in the flower shops of the night
The coal fire of a carefree visionary.
And lately
Something is heard of
Openhearted mouths,
Bonus,
To look out.

I cover the poem like
Grass covers the grave
Like devil covers the milk
The apathy of a gargoyle
That reveals
Lonesome internal crowds.
I find my place via words
Buried pillars that delay
The wave to the fire
We have big mouths ideas
Who dislodge from icebergs
And become headlines
The earth that echoes our shatter
Continents devastated by dreadful
Alphabets
In the bar I get drunk with a bottle of tears
It’s because of the mucus of some enclosing phalanx
Variety of dimensions
An orchestration of ceased windmills
New fortunes of planets
The climax of the worship of modern verse
Leads to an attic of rats
The mob’s shocking feeling of tedium
Since be spared of madness
My existence becomes a religion
From the unction of some tender injustice
Lust like diamonds plod.

I’m typing under the heaviest burden
The solidification of emptiness
One iromancy
As if there are no other elements
Like the lions race
Before enter our thought
Under the shadow of this
Bust of time.
Someone from the rudeness
Is spinning golden courses of words in the air
The evil
Spearmint
Whirling
Vulva of universes
Discord of characters
A page of expansion written
By the fashion of death
Spread wide open –

Pedagogic, the restructures
Of the libraries and the real heroes
With bad outcome –
I surmount the evil counting with whispers a
Greater magnitude
I grasp life with my hands and is warm
The future is manning in the papers of the poet
With the tangible and the unreal
With the ivy and the wall
With the mouth of the nightingale in the blast of the storm
The temporary gives birth to
The everlasting.

Death is
Ripe bananas
The worst
I could think
Doves at midnight driving a police car
And I for no reason
No reason I kiss you
Put my signature
I cut a loaf of emptiness
And I lie esteemingly on
Nothing solid in the marvelous
We bind the sun with a wire
For half an hour
We trumpet it around
Printed letters
Letters big letters small
We drink them
We laugh at them
We grind them for dust
Darn it!
Even if the sun is made of cashmere
And comes out from the attic window of our belly
When night birds guard our oblivion
In inflammable forests.

A wooden statue with cheap offerings
Is inexplicable raised outside the house
And inside yes all the forms of the crushing chronology;
To connect you must be connected
Think on the basis of anatomy
Think of the brothers who lay in absolute indolence
Think nothing
Except the fact that a poem may someday
Be absent
May be everywhere written
Its natural origin means something
It’s an invitation
For Parthenon to find a place
On Himalayas
With the gold of the American bank to
Make shoes or sweet nothings
To bury everything into a dwarfish earth.
Albatross emerge from the earth.

At dawn the star of my prayer
Got shored up
All that happens in the world is minor
Pompously washed up obscurities
Inside the thought of an inconceivable reflection
Dusts
Flaming of the voices
Pulleys and counterweights
Secrets of the movement of life
Wholeness powerless fairly worn
Use
Of the lexicons
The wild nature
The whirls of declination
The walled glare –
Pain is a rock
That crumbles into my blood creating
Chasms.

Signal before the eclipse
Of the tones and the sequence of the routes
Wishes on postcards that don’t represent
Anything
Ancestral skulls debase and roll
To philanthropy –
From under you do not understand much.
More unrefined points
Tissues clapping and be clapped
Into continuities of posterior darkness
For denigration and evident estimation.
What carpe diem restrains you away.
Pose in the gallery of meat.
You have such tremors, while you see me drinking
The fuel of the immaculate camellia like water.
We are of the plurals.
We curse the destination
We are also immobile
Presences less and less recognizable
Like remnants with a slant look.
There is no meaning anymore.
Say their names –
Classicism, oligarchies to the dissimilar.

We are the grand-grandchildren of some strangers
We don’t surrender the soul
We leave a message a riddle of explicity
Two three steps away
You are alone:
The incident of birth
The signs of the times,
The trails of life the meditation of activity
The lights are out at dawn
Someone unseen
Has passed.

In darkness the so many ways of light,
Force is the female of life
The temptations of Saint Anthony
The gallop of the Remington
The tail of the whale
At the beach umbrellas striped
War and profit
You pay you get paid
The communication of the masks –
Conceptions of the many simultaneously
We suffer
The extra large do not fit to us
It’s a shame –
In the third decade of life
I revive from the preservation
Of an obscure rock-painting
Where everybody reads
His half-extinct
Line with difficulty.

The joy and sorrow of the idols,
But yet the thought that some day
Man will make it through –
We say over and over
Not that some day… but now
The whole being at the spectacles
Pencil-beatings
Ball-pen bruising
In the name of some wretched ontology
But I prefer a drink from golden hands
And outside the sleet to look like ribbons.
Dressed in the whole atmosphere
In every breath.

That’s how they call them: circumstances of the currents.
They know us all over the universe by
Our proper name
So you are aware of the perception why
I exploit harshly my existence
With gentleness,
That depends on you.

Together we put
Fire in the storehouse –
Moistened grains of salt and moon-twigs:
The way a decoy
With the decency of a suit
Becomes a sport a hobby of tomorrow.
Unregistered junctions of individualism's:
An enormous value misconceived
Like a mystical religion –
I am one of the Symbols.

Inaccessible then
The fields of the blossoms the turnings of times
The sword of the signature of poet
My page however
Is a beauty solid
Organic
Spot
Dangerous to read –
The pictures are no longer count
Veramente
Wild instincts
This is the new poem
Contrapunto
A prologue
Apteral Nike
Of one.



Yannis Livadas was born in Kalamata, Greece, in September 26, 1969. Done dozens of different works. He traveled around (India, Tunisia, Algeria, Italy, France, Morocco...) and today he lives temporarily in Athens, Greece. He is also a scholar and translator.
In 2003 he proclaimed “the Greek jazz poet”. He is considered as a Beat offspring but his poetry is oriented toward more dexterous and unsafe forms.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

My Heart Belongs To The Soldiers



Five Poems By Boel Schenlær



I
The man speaks English


they want me
to get on board
the white airplane

they don´t believe
I understand

they don´t believe
I know what to do

the man speaks English
I watch his hands
while he imagines
what he could do with them

the rage
like a scar
that puts his face in order




The dark-dressed men


much taller than me
push me in front

I take care of my clothes
white skirt, white shirt

the dark-dressed men
keep reminding me
the clothes don´t
belong to me

I know their names now
Jim and George
they call me Laurie
that´s not my name

a little ends up
in the seat
I wipe it off
with an orange
some woman peels
for me

All there is


nothing

I try to push everything
through the ventilator

the sounds from a fan
makes me sleepy

there is a light
strong lamps
there is darkness
and my pain goes everywhere

I am four meters long
and my belly is too small
there is no one
capable of this
can I please go home soon




II
From the dark and cold room


On the third floor
suddenly
men from shadows
not around my bed
but around hers
four, maybe five of them
holding her
pulling the sheets
holding her head
her belly
scrunching
they are
already gone
when the fire
covers her




III Back home


Mom


I know
she is weeping
there are no tears
on her pillow




What if?


if they knew
I am not capable
of this
but still
they can´t possibly find me
it will cost too much
to go this far


Dad


next time he starts his car
his foot will blow up
then he gets angry
furious

because he doesn´t get it:
who wishes him
bad luck


IV
Carried down


shadows made of nothing
but steel
in the cold and dark room

it all shrunk
or got destroyed

I am put in a unit
planning to run away

a needle
with a blue head of glass
in a black pajamas

my memory of sunshine
becomes a lucid vision
I get no air

the darkness
pushes me up
like if my body
is cut in half
pieces by the limbs
there is no pain at all
for a moment
but then it comes around
whole
as the air returns
then they carry me down
it is over




V
My heart belongs to the soldiers


In my ears


they cry out to me
telling me to die
shouting they fear to die
that they want to go back home
that it´s all my fault
that they don´t want
their intestines torn out
that they have a girlfriend at home
that I am a thin rug.
Children sleep in their beds at night
why am I here
why did I not see to
stay at home
so they wouldn´t
need to be here
stuck with me.




Soldier


Be glad you´re still with us
many are even worse off.
I saw one.
She was suddenly
dead.
Just like that, just gave up.
She didn´t want to be around anymore,
I guess.
No wonder.
Really, I didn´t know what to do.
“But”, they said to me,
“not your fault”. She was
going, anyway.
So, left me with nothing
else to do but pack my bag
or, to leave, I mean.
I hope I don´t scare you, puppy.
You´re so cute,
white and small and all.
Not like her with
those twisted eyes.


Soldier


You can keep it
if you want it.
It´s from my jacket.
What did they
do to you.
I won´t hurt you.
I will tuck you in
and then you´ll sleep.
God bless you
from this filthy space.




Soldier


I´ve had it.
I won´t go back.
I´ve got this ticket
so I know what I´m saying.
I will get you out of here.
You´ll come with me.
I know what I´m saying.
Just wait here
and I ´ll
be back soon.




Soldier


Do you believe you´re the only one here
Do you believe you can force me
to love you.
You must be a joke.
A bad joke.
As bad as me.








Soldier


I got it from the store
as a gift for somebody
but you can have it
for free.
What are you doing here
living here, anyway?
You are not somebodys daughter,
are you?




Soldier


Stand up!
Don´t just lie there.
Don´t you have no legs.
What is this? I paid for
her standing.
I want another one. A new one.
I didn´t pay for the strap.




For a second


the sun
was brought to me
it was warm
and damp
someone was kind
for a while
then drove me
back inside




Boel Schenlær : Poet & playwright.Hometown:
Södermalm, Åtvidaberg, Sweden.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Advice: LCD TVs



by Tim Hall

Q: What size LCD TV do I need?

A: First, the good news: prices for liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions have dropped dramatically. That means that the huge wall-sized screen your neighbor spent several thousand dollars on a few years ago can be had for half or even one-third the price, and might well boast a better picture quality and have more features (and won't he be jealous!). If you don't need a large screen, or your budget is more modest, you can easily pick up an excellent quality 22" or 26" set for a few hundred dollars, which was unthinkable until recently.

The bad news is that there are now so many different sizes and options, at so many price points, that consumers can easily become confused. If you're the kind of consumer who feels overwhelmed by the many different types of LCD televisions currently on the market, don't be discouraged; knowing a little bit about the features in advance can help you narrow down your choices and make the best decision for your needs and your budget.

Size Matters: While there are some rough rules of thumb for what size works best in a particular room, the size of the screen is ultimately a personal decision. For example, 32" will be plenty for most average-sized American living rooms. If you're planning on putting your TV in a large family room, great room, or over a mantle, then you might consider moving up to 40" or larger. In smaller rooms and bedrooms a 22" or 26" screen should suffice. One easy way to tell what size screen you need is to go to a showroom where you can stand approximately the same distance away from the sets that you will be viewing them at home.

If you're planning on mounting your LCD TV on the wall then you might want to take into consideration the weight of the set and the amount of hardware you will need, and make sure your wall can accommodate the mounting brackets. Most larger chains offer installation options; speak to your sales representative for details.

HD or not HD? Virtually all modern LCD televisions are ready for HD (high definition) viewing; confusion generally occurs over which kind of HD your TV supports. While they will all offer superior image quality, if you're concerned about having enough features so your set will not be obsolete in a couple of years then you will want a set that features true 1080p or 1080i resolution (purists will argue that only 1080p is worth getting, but never listen to purists. They are an unhappy lot as a general rule). Some televisions still feature 720 HD resolution, which also looks fantastic, whether you're watching the news, DVD, or a HD broadcast of your favorite team. If you have a Blu-Ray player, however, or plan on getting one in the near future, then you will probably want to listen to the purists and get a 1080p set.

Inputs: Modern LCD screens are capable of much more than just movies or broadcasts; they are increasingly becoming the center of a "digital hub" for your home, good for viewing home videos, digital photos, or hooking up PCs, laptops, game consoles, iPods and the like. Some televisions even feature built-in digital card readers, or USB ports for flash drives. At the very least you'll want a set that comes with at least two HDMI inputs, as well as separate component and composite video inputs. A VGA monitor connector for hooking up a laptop or PC can come in handy too.

This is by no means a comprehensive guide to what LCD TVs can do, or everything you should consider, but it should provide you with a solid basis on which to make your purchasing decision. Whichever LCD TV you decide is right for you, by using this guide then you're more likely to enjoy many years of high-quality entertainment. Happy viewing.



Tim Hall : Author of screwball tragedies, mem-noir, true fiction and non-fiction novels. Micro publisher, freelance writer. Hometown : Gramercy Park, New York, USA. This piece is part of a series of experimental pieces Tim Hall is doing called "Q&A," based on "literal writing." It follows the "Advice: iPods (2007)" piece he did for Salit Magazine

2 Poems Of Aloke Biswas



The Heliotrope / The Photogem



They are not words, just jingling hemoglobin – turbulent in veins at the end of a different day. I saw a sounds cape in my travellogrammer at the edge of words. They have been roaming for ages on the music-misted peaks. The ancient periods of words were pouring slew of fogs close to the cardiac atrium as sound vocabs. Why I opened the pages of chirping dawn, why the great rhythm transformed into a drug-store rather than bursting into a symphony? Why I interpreted that the liquid Bohemian was sniffing a yes-walled mountain path camouflaged within the minus sign? The edge of the season that developed art of watching was getting widened gradually while the steely school syllabus narrower. The creeper of light thriving around the love-ladder held tight the ion-domed gene. The picnic of pico-inches, intoxicated tantrums filled up the lovelorn lover. The gun powdered erection, green hullabaloos at the windows….. the silent chorus of colour forced the idiot to come out in the mobbed exterior following retrospection. Who cares about the whistling champagne-penis? The decibel trees dance within thousands of crimson syllabi. The meritorious sun slaved hard to rid off wintry chill. Deconstructing the sunrays I would kiss the untouchable girl on my fantasy bed, I would kiss the tinkling of light in a disheveled farmer’s dress.



The Study


The door of sunrays expanded –
The storm and lashing rain entered haphazardly through
the gaping thirst!
There the wounded sunshine lies with requests and footnotes
and the autumn comfortable in the diction of ascent….
they are all very familiar, yet perpetually strange!
How the christening of the Dawn is yet unknown?
How the silvery scale of sun spurts open the sight?
Whose notes of Re Gaa Re! decoded in the symphony of dawn?
The whooshing love screeches to dead stop on my command to start
The vitamins stay unchanged even when the monitors crumble down!
Who said the wafting aroma of sandalwood-sound died
and the knickknacks got rusted?
Who predicted that the embittered gamebroidery of the sun
would be abandoned?
Who said that the vacuum cleaner swished down
the cascade of intellect with static fiery droplets?
And then who prompted that some areas got blessed with sunshine, but not all!



Aloke Biswas : These poems are translated from Bangla by the poet. Aloke writes in Bangla . Editor of Poetry Campus, a Bangla Lit Zine since 1991. He has 10 published books of poems.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Poem And Photo By Maria Grazia Galata'


Maria's Home Town is Palermo in Italy.She believes in Experimental Poems.In her words 'Experimental Linguistic Research'.When I asked her to translate the poem in English she said it will not have any meaning if it is translated.

Monday, September 28, 2009

CENSORED--Apple/I-Phone Takes on Flash Fiction Writer in Online Journal? Apple? Come on!


After the initial shock we asked permission from Heather Fowler the writer to repost the whole story with her comments from FB.

Sun at 10:12pm

When the Net Gets Freaky and Flash Fiction Grows too Bold For Even the Liberal Ex-Hippies: Apple Requires My Flash Removed From KeyHole To Allow I-phone App Approval--Move Over Big Brother; The Perps Now Wear Birkenstocks or Other Mysterious Apparel


First things first, I deeply feel that Peter Cole, Editor and Publisher at Keyhole Magazine/Press, is awesome and anti-censorship. I met him last year at the AWP conference and was delighted to speak with him about a a new book just out by the illustrious William Walsh, finding his conversation interesting and that he came across as a lovely human being. The above personal anecdote is expressed only to underline that the events that have recently transpired are no reflection on him and that he did every honorable thing he could do in the situation--but this doesn't change the fact that I got an email from him in my inbox earlier this week, one that said something to the effect of: I've spent money on this app for Keyhole. I hate to ask you this, Heather--but would you mind if I take your story off my site-- or I-phone won't let me use my app to distribute media?

Apparently, to widen their visibility, the fun people at KeyHole have been working to get an I-phone app programmed. After scanning his site, they sent him the following message, which Peter was kind enough to share with me:

"Dear Keyhole Press,

Thank you for submitting Keyhole Magazine to the App Store. We've reviewed Keyhole Magazine and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:

'Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.'

A screenshot of this issue has been attached for your reference. [they attached a photo of your story in the app]

If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that Keyhole Magazine does not violate the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Regards,
iPhone Developer Program"
****************************



The story was a piece called "Catholic Girl Smile," thus the title was not enough to draw the censorship, but to call the piece "obscene," or to intimate that, is fascinating to me. It is a literary flash fiction piece, of about six hundred words, about a boy who attempts to masturbate for the first time and is interrupted in this pursuit by his sister.

Is it redundant to say: No one even gets off? Of the work I have available online already, I feel this piece, its content, is rather G-rated--okay, PG-13--but apparently APPLE disagrees. It could also be the Catholicism I referenced. Because, no one ever says anything about Catholicism out loud, right? Sarcasm can be implied and is encouraged.

Of course, in response to Peter's note, I gave him my full permission to remove the piece from the web, knowing he always does fine work in terms of putting out edgy work-- and my little story is just an incidental casualty, a swatted fly, that I would not want to impair his greater publishing agenda or audience, but what I fear about this event is that it will not just affect me, but all online writers with edge and all online publishers of stories, should this be a growing trend.

I'm sure everyone tagged in this note is fully aware that--*oh gasp*--the pen is mighty, mighty. But I feel like the mouse whose tail has been stepped on by the titan. A little overkill, don't you think? Had this censorship been enacted by PayPal or other such conglomerates that are notoriously prudish and anti-eroticism in content, I would not have been surprised. But the fact is, I have other stories online that use the word "cunt"--multiple times, in multiple ways, in multiple ideological considerations--and none of these has ever been censored by a bigwig entity.

In sum, to any who read my work or might click through my bio to access my work online, of which there is a growing mass that will only expand in the next year or two, watch me flash my flash, here is your notice that one story in particular will no longer be a hyperlink, a story that is an innocent foray into questions about Catholicism, masculine sexuality, and guilt-- though it used to be available for all, for nearly a year now, at KeyHole Mag. Implicit message: They are scanning the archives, folks, not just the main pages.

But for the amusement or edification of those tagged, I now paste the piece below so that you can see if you feel it rivals other "obscene" literary content already on the web--enough so to merit being struck by the record so that a kind and harassed editor can enjoy the privilege of kissing the big, monied ring of Apple/I-Phone-- in order to pursue an admirable goal of getting more readers (which I am gung-ho about, make no mistake).

As for me, I'm proud to be censored, actually. I sigh. I moan. I throw up my hands. But then I smile, widely--thinking: I must be saying something interesting if someone wants me to shut the hell up. Thus, I feel the above series of events is a badge of honor, of sorts, a new milestone at the beginning of my literary career before my three-hundred some stories and counting, four hundred some poems, have even found homes, before I have a single book contract to my name (though the list of published stories gets longer and longer, making me wish someone would wake up to this need sometime soon)--and placing me in the ranks of other historically censored authors such as: Miller, Plath, Sartre, Twain, Lewis, etc. For a long list of illustrious folks I can now join leagues with, feel free to consult this site or others for the walk-of-shame list/s that makes this a sullied pleasure and a dubious honor in my view: http://www.banned-books.com/bbauth.html

And, the story is below. Let's see if my Facebook Page gets deleted now. Literary community, beware. Big Brother wears interesting petticoats and footwear these days. He or she could be the very one saying to you, via bots or people or lawyers even from the most "liberal" of companies: "Say, be you! Express yourself! Be experimental! Be edgy! But, oh, [in a whisper as a gripping hand yanks you to a corner invisible to most of the reading public] just don't do it in public--and also avoid doing this on any affiliated sites or feeds used by our company. Let me help you: The duct-tape is kept on hand two doors down from our lawyers' suite. Feel free to partake of it before we have to discipline you into applying it ourselves. Self-govern, people! As long as you can. This message is Courtesy of Apple/I-phone. We also provide complimentary, confidential dommes with no names, or strange names like 'iPhone Developer Program,' and have a nice day, always, courtesy of I-phone and our reps!"

So here, subversively, I unveil the content edgy enough to be eliminated.

Should I suddenly disappear from Facebook, as I mentioned above, you'll know they've deleted my account. It's been great to be your friend.

See you on the page or at other writerly events.

As always, love, love, love,
h

_____________________

Catholic Girl Smile

Grant took the things he'd been told he needed and closed the door, staring at the knob for a moment as if he feared it would turn by itself. The lock was broken, but his parents wouldn't be home for several hours. He looked down, prepared, and then began. This was the first time he had tried, having just turned eleven, so each step felt new or forbidden. He opened the lid to the porcelain basin and stared into the water, and then glanced upwards towards the crucifix his mother had hung on the wall above the extra toilet paper holder bin. He pictured Helen's face, smiling at him-- as she often did. In his imagining, like at school, she wore the uniform of St. Mary Magdelene's, a white button up blouse and a blue and grey plaid skirt--and though it was the same uniform the other girls wore, there had always been, for him, something different about the way she filled it out. Hourglass.

She was a year older and he liked her. She was taller than him, too. As he stood at the toilet, he didn't try to picture her naked, but instead how she looked jumping rope and singing verses of their chants as she did with her friends during lunchtime, the skinny ones, Molly and Lisa Mae, turning the rope as she jumped her turn, plaid skirt bouncing up to reveal dark, muscular thighs, her arms swinging slightly, the red and teal beads in her weave glinting in the sun.

He applied the lotion, closing his eyes. With each passing moment, it was as though her skirt flew higher, like she jumped so far above the rope that the draft created by impact and the movement of her legs were compelled to float it more and more each she time landed, whether on one foot or two, until it just kept hovering above her white cotton panties like a ballerina's skirt. Too, he could see her looking at him as she jumped, winking, smiling a new, sly smile he had never seen. Mentally, he smiled back at her, too, as he soloed closer to his goal, escalating the movement of his hand until he came so very close to something he had never had before that he was certain it would have been fantastic if his eight year old sister hadn't opened the door, without even knocking, and shouted, "I have to use the bathroom!"

In response, he shouted back, red as a beet, "Get out, Sally! I'm taking a piss! Leave me alone, will ya?" but the damage was done; he could not bring himself back to Helen. He flushed a nothing load and fled the scene bewildered. It would be many months before he would find another such a chance, for his parents watched him closely and were hardly ever gone.

Still, it was a long lunch period in school the next day, watching Helen jump. He felt he had, in one way or another, been robbed of her. He was angry. His pants felt tighter. And she didn't smile at him then. She frowned. She frowned so much that, later, when he thought about it privately, ashamed and dismayed, he realized the sly smile he had attributed to her was likely a product only of his head-- and that she was the innocent whom he, by devising it, had maligned. Too, he would think, for many moons, from all that day's frowning, that she knew what he had done.



***





Heather Fowler received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University in May of 1997. She has taught composition, literature, and writing-related courses at UCSD, California State University at Stanislaus, and Modesto Junior College.

Among other venues, she has published short stories in the following journals and anthologies: Feminist Studies (forthcoming); Surreal South 09 (forthcoming Fall 2009); Etchings (forthcoming Summer 2009, AUS); filling Station (forthcoming 2009, CAN); PANK (June 2009); Night Train (April 2009, Issue 9.1); The Abacot Journal (Spring 2009); Underground Voices (November 2008); A Cappella Zoo (October 2008, Volume I). KeyHole (August 2008); Trespass (August/September 2008, UK); SubLit (August 2008); Coming Together: With Pride (Phaze, 2008, e-book and print); Word Riot (May 2008); Storyglossia #28 (May 2008); Cityworks 2008 (May 2008); DOGZPLOT FLASH FICTION (2008, online and print); Temenos (Fall 2007); Mississippi Review online (October 2007); See You Next Tuesday (2006); Frigg: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry (Winter 2006); the muse apprentice guild (October 2002); artisan, a journal of craft (September 2002); Literary PotPourri (May 2002); Exquisite Corpse (Summer 2001); The Barcelona Review (May, 2001); Quercus Review (May, 2001); Penumbra (May 2001); B & A New Fiction (Jan. 2001); Barbaric Yawp (Dec. 2000); and Zoetrope All-Story Extra (June 2001, October and December 1999). She worked as a Guest Editor for Zoetrope All-Story Extra in March and April of 2000. Her story "Slut" won third prize at the 2000 California Writer's Conference in Monterey.

Her poetry has recently appeared at the CrisisChronicles Online Library (October 2008), INTHEFRAY (February 2008), Empowerment4Women.com (November 2007), and been selected for a joint first place in the 2007 Faringdon Online Poetry Competition (October 2007) , as well as published in various venues.

Current City: San Diego, CA, USA.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Talk Poetry ## Yannis Livadas Answers Back

1. What sets your poems apart from other contemporary Greek poets?

: Poetry.

2. What are your main concerns as a poet?

: My life. My state of action. Poet is the organon of poetry therefore I must always be on the Wheel. Enjoying ever.

3. My FB friend Tim Hall an underground writer from US, whose piece from 1000th Monkey 'How To Be An Underground Lit Legend' I am translating now in Bangla, asked me a question which I want to repeat here to you...
Is there as much apathy towards outsider, unconventional or otherwise underground literature in Athens as there is here in Kolkata or USA? Is there a corporate-owned literary industry over there that controls access to serious writing and completely denies the existence of serious writers? Is there a movement against it?

: Yes, apathy there is, though I see no underground poetry here. I am also not quite a fan of it; I believe poetry must only be authentic, nothing else – it is well known that I am not interested in movements. And yes there is a “control” system in Athens, as anywhere. The only Greek literary movement I know is Mediocrity…


Three Poems Of Yannis Livadas


She's Out To Lunch


Who knows what
my dear prigs and ex-lovers
that you loved and censored
who knows what

dear families of this earth
i am standing but cannot stand anything
i study monotony

sodomize your prayers
for i love you so much

my sins are more innocent
than my good deeds

i had told you once:
Truth knows not

she's out to lunch.


Under The Hokusai Wave


God remains more powerful
Than man.
Beauty is a hidden sun
Over the clouds
Of this heavy shower that turns sour.

Perhaps we don’t need
Poems?

We quarreled for the umbrella
Under the Hokusai
Wave.


Poets Mourn For The Immortal Poem


Poets mourn for the immortal poem
And is very relative with this
Dew drop at the edge of the sparrow’s bill.

The look your breasts give me
Is pure immortality
Just like the grasp of the sparrow’s
Little feet.

The sea is words
That comes out from the mouth of the coast
And we naked liquefy future
For one more candle.


Yannis Livadas was born in Kalamata, Greece, in September 26, 1969. Done dozens of different works. He traveled around (India, Tunisia, Algeria, Italy, France, Morocco...) and today he lives temporarily in Athens, Greece. He is also a scholar and translator.
In 2003 he proclaimed “the Greek jazz poet”. He is considered as a Beat offspring but his poetry is oriented toward more dexterous and unsafe forms.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

At Pashupatinath

By Nahshon Cook

The wind was breezy and full of light this morning,
when I was reminded by my heart
of how old ones are replaced by new ones
in order for Life to be on her way,
as I sat on the edge of one of the dove grey,
moon colored steps of the temple,
directly across from the red hot flames
on the other side of the holy river Bagmati,
and listened to howling, dog like cries
sound off from the homesick souls of dead people
watching their bodies be reduced to dust
by the golden, straw fed fires of funeral pyres
spewing out clouds of fog grey smoke
into the wide, blue-if-it’s-a-boy blue sky
like prayers for the courage to reach for heaven
as the sad, private, burnt pork roast smell
of burning, human flesh filled the air
like the caaw, caaw, caaw of the crow who, just now,
began preaching from the branch of a very tall tree,
right next to my hotel room window,
about how the magic of Reality is really a thing
with no birthplace, and nowhere to die.


-Kathmandu Nepal Oct, 23 2008



Nahshon Cook's poetry has appeared in two Cleo Parker Robinson Dance productions and a tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou in 2008. He has read his poetry at peace and interfaith conferences in Colorado which have included "Mysticism and Social Change", "A Celebration of Religious Freedom", and "Race, Gender and Class in the Building of the Beloved Community. His first collection of poetry A New Beginning will be published in January 2010 by "please” press.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Voice Over and Dialogues From The Short Film Ebang Falguni /The Lost Lines Of A Beauty Monster


Text – Falguni Roy
Script – Sharmy Pandey


I, a human being walk from the womb to the funeral pyre
And reap my very own soul from the refrigerator of wilderness
I, a human being can both love and pee
To wash-off my nightmares and in thirst I can use water
in two different ways
By the side of your reality this is my celebration of suicide
This song of my self-desired death
Here with words free from speech all must be done
And I stare in the light of the urban neon
By my solitary shadow not your outline
but in my body a tail


I am without relief just a man wrapped in his fate
Just a man with no destiny wrapped in his violence
Without a party flag I live
Without a woman’s love, I live
In the burning sun to listen to Tagore, I live


Paki soldiers from Bangladesh, Yankee mines from the Tong-King
shores and from behind the sand bag barricades of Calcutta the army
has moved out…. China-Nixon treaty has happened
Jeeps to the moon, wheat to India, soldiers to Vietnam and competitors
to the Olympic have been sent by black and white America


Once upon a time our hearts brimmed with love
Now my cashless-ness has eaten into all feelings
Even rebels can’t make ends meet


Dialogue1 – Perhaps the belly pre-empts a bellyache
Life pre-empts hunger
Dialogue2 – Well said buddy, so life pre-empts hunger, eh!
I have seen the moon as a pyre on flames
on an empty stomach….


Why on earth did you seek nirvana Goutama Buddha you fool
In the land of the muse and darling damsels, India
Who the hell seeks nirvana?


Lord Buddha in place of non-violence we want peace
to flow out of the barrel of a gun


Dialogue3 – Where the fuck have you been so long?


In truth I need to lapse into a magical death
In the muddy movement of viscous amoeba of my life
I hurl carbon dioxide to the cunts of damsels
The burning pyre evokes in me not death but lust


Lazy rascal am I from time to time I seek a life
of a whore’s pet
Standing here with a charminar between my lips
I hear from the chill and warm vapor of blood
the mysterious footsteps of poetry
I listen besides the poetry the shout and abuse of the soul
Right here
The hazy moon of evil hope flows down the
menstrual blood of whores


I am a beauty monster
If god was at hand I would have buried
his live flesh and fed it to the devil


In the locality where the prophet was burnt
I was born, a debauch by birth
Sleeping with other men’s wives
according to me is Tantrik bindusadhana
How terrible this existence
On my left lung lives love on the right perversion
From my phallic arousal I have come to know
telepathic communication
I have come to see there is nothing apart in between
the rich and the poor the bourgeois and the communist
Yet some die lighter than feather
Yet some die heavier than hills


Who winds up my cardiac clock


Who would pay the price of the heart?
Who would provide paper and ink for poetry?
In sickness who would provide care and health?
In hunger who would provide succor?
In love who would give me the beloved?

Can the state give all???
Can communism transform the failed to the succeeded?
Can socialism make a good poet of a bad?

Food clothe shelter we demand
Women and poetry we demand
Intoxication we demand pure and unadulterated
Art is our intoxication
Writing is our intoxication
Intoxication is our sense of hunger


We don’t want to be killed
nor the killer
Instead of being martyred making martyrs of
class-enemies is what we want


Like the mute lonely divine
A wondrous silence exists at the depth of our creation


Without the colour of money the pimp of the whore and the father of the bride
never relent their charge to us.
With the ash of this whorish civilization on us should we then fold our phallus beneath our folds and become hermits?


No, I have no contention with men
To arrive you have to be born with an air-bottle in your heart.
Day after day my heart and my intestines I munch as I chew
I mock the imperishable soul to the stars for the taste of eternity
For the sake of love I am aware of retribution


Poet Jibananda
Of all he saw of the celebration of labour of those swine
Of all he heard of the moaning of those swine
Their descendents
The descendents of the descendents
Still scream around me

I do not know if my poetry can stop that scream


Let me live beyond death
Not in the inescapable sexuality of a woman in the child
But let my being throb in the flesh of my words


I cannot write
I cannot write a word
The existence of books, wisdom
And the Brahma of the alphabet the Brahma of all meaning
Surrounds me


Despite my defiance of obedience
I remain till the end
A slave of my inner being


Translated from Bangla by Graffiti Team’

Falguni Ray was born on June 7, 1945 and died young on May 31, 1981. He wrote only forty-two poems and six prose pieces in a span of five years. His oeuvre was included only in one sleek volume titled Nashto Atmar Television (The Television Of A Lost Soul), the publication of which on 15th August (Indian Independence Day) 1973 had been hailed by the famous postmodern poet and critic Utpalkumar Basu as 'signifying the end of modernity in Bangla poetry, on the same scale as the destruction of Machine For Living Building in USA in 1972.

Sharmy Pandey a young contemporary poet, a self taught artist and now a filmmaker.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Two Poems By Shankarnath Chakraborty

Groom Companion’s Song


Listen to discourses of suffering listen
listen hey discourses of suffering

Thereafter hang with tramcar wire
blow your nose at the marriage of goblin’s dad
climb on shoulders of widow witches and beat your drum
disrupt
rotten tent of the sphynx
carrying along the lime
place it beneath the knife of postmortem room
breaking jaws with three blows
direct him walk on walk you son of a fool
break the old neck of Sindbad

Here at I could listen to whistle of the storm
earth mound of shore dismantles
pierced by harpoon of sub sea mountains
the ruffians of Dinabandhu Mitra stand waiting
boot-marks on back

Knowing everything Maxmuler shame on you



Ateesh Depankar Shrigyan


He found three puppies on his way
tied them at the end of his loincloth
started his journey, again

Completeness of knowledge was possible

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Once More For Lucy And For All Radio Stations

By Subhankar Das



Not only licking lips you know Lucy we had
all these nerve disgorging dawns
lips in search of mystery lips
water in search of water your face and lots of clouds
It would be wrong to call it just water
There was ice made of smoke and row houses
how shadows arrive strolling and get prepared
on our electric-skin all our search all the water of dawn
Colour will cover all the burn blemishes of rain
even then we can talk of arson those life long anger
For the power of burning blood streams on guitar-chord
will have to be licked clean
Now the cloud-pulps have fled after lifting the curtains
Living is such a pleasure to live
that means those mile-long nerve-nets
have not learned to fly
are tied to the ears of a guitar
That tree emerges from the abdomen
roots and stems emerge
branches spread out of the mouth and peep
glory of the leaves starts falling from eyes
It would be wrong to call it just water
These are probably words not flesh-lumps
These are probably births
Which can never be aired to you from any radio station

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Who The Nightingale Bites The Eye





By Subhankar Das


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

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Hungryalist Poems

For Mala

by Debi Ray
(Malar Jonya translated by Howard McCord)


Let me fall into your moving, delicate breasts.

Each one is a goblet of poison and pain

and only a handful---

a little lump of flesh my palm can swallow.

A cheek. Look here!

This heart-lance, meek with 26 years---no anger, please.

Sit a while on the pillow of my lap.

Youth is that it should linger for ten summers.

The days are short that we are in the world.

Don't climb on the bridge.

Don't let your eyes follow the train

driven by electricity

Take me in your breasts and keep me from fear.

Let your hand touch my testicles.

I don't want to be hurt

and I am afraid of the knives and forks

on the tables of cafes.

I am much afraid of the bloodlessness

caught in te years' youth.

Relieve me, if you wish I will

buy you a bull-terrier

for the taste of your body.

We have only a few days

on this earth.

Only a few days.



Swimming With Henry Miller

by Pradip Choudhuri
(Henry Millerer Sangey Santar translated by Jyotirmoy Datta)


Not much traffic here, I can easily remove my head from the trunk and lay it aside, move the bottoms from their place, can get entrapped without looking at my body, merely by lifting up my face from this cold sand in this cold sun, or else I run down the avenue, Hotel Du Mauriere, trash, trash, after that strange cold I feel out of sorts for days, nothing seems to jell, a coffee less week, as I return to the Bengali language from my exile, or as I read Corso's poetry sitting at home, or swim in the bathtub with Henry Miller (nowadays I don't), naked, naturally, O God, I have to be at least about that even when turning non-human, or else my unspeakable chin has moved 1/5", constipation in 1965, someone tears my mustache and munches on them, rots in my skin bag the juice of wasted youth---crossing the sky, I walk alone deep in the heart of the sky---



A Poem

by Subo Acharya
(Ekti Kobita translated by Jyotirmoy Datta)


Men do live and men do die

good men live and bad men too

bad men die and good men live

good men die and bad men live

how men come to harm and what is harm

the secret fever rises in my heart

my empty skull is crooked and tired

bones in my cracked skin also crack

men do live and men do die.



I And

by Tridib Mitra
(Aami Ebang translated by poet)

Autumn's phantasmagorical tempest

I at the door of 1964

wooden knocks--who are you wood pecker?

What is this?

Shocked vision

chances dreams haha reality's become more dense

Pooooooooooeeeeeet

still boozed in love?

Gibbet

another revolt squanders like 1857 thrashes

Fire in Shantiniketan, fire here at Calcutta

In Midnapore Shyambazar Khalasitola

Fire in eyes face heart cock

This fireball gnarling

in happiness hatred pain intellect dream reality

All---junk--ho ho smoke net---

tinsel like groundnut

all around chirping

afar angry shadows roar, flounder on earth...

Confessions of a Male darkness

By Parnab Mukherjee


Tribal Myth: The Elkela tribe is a nomadic collective of southern Orissa, India. I caught up with them in Ganjam in 2005. They give their wives to the highest bidder. Elkela women usually switch to the highest bidder without any qualms. Occasionally, the wives also sell themselves, both for reasons of economics and better sex. They speak in a strange dialect of Oriya laced with Telegu. For a living, the family collects honey and traps mice and snakes.

A dwindling community, they are now only 5,000 in number. They don’t belong to voter lists nor do they receive any grant under the bonded labour scheme. The fascinating part of their lives is that most husbands of the tribe practice and earn from being a Mundopota. Mundopota is a practice where men dig the ground and put their heads inside. With their heads buried in the ground and almost no chance of breathing, the Mundopotas can survive for as long as even 10 hours. Women and children draw photographs of gods/goddesses with coloured chalk around the dug-in heads. It is a dying art. This is a text on the Mundopotas.

My head inside the ground
looking at the morass
as you get more arse
from the next bidder
At the end of the day my bed is empty
but then I am used to darkness and
you are used to light
My head inside the ground
looking at the endlessness of a dungeon
My head inside the ground
searching for components of darkness
amongst mortar
brick
shit
smell
and earth
Some flung coins
some rupees
and a meal
There is another darkness that is mine
the hunger of not eating
and the hunger of knowing that you are in the bed of
somebody who paid more for you
hunger all the way

Two Poems Of Samir Roychowdhury


Open ended


You said to women
come my way but don’t follow,
there starts deconstruction…
she said, there
is a safety pin left behind
by the Sannyasin in washroom…
But you said the Sannyasin left behind
an open safety pin
then unending mystery starts—
deconstruction follow.

-----------------
Sannyasin – Sage


Human armour


Manushyakabacham
Each word
Hring Hring look sun rises
a mantra.
Within seeds of words a sound
which carries meaning…
Utter Hri only then a deer visits
sun disappears—

The deer afraid of tiger
but creates the domain of escape
An escapade beyond the clutch;
Yes, Shiva with snakes around its neck,
wisdom flows from
his tousled matted hair, the
Counter text.



Samir Roychowdhury : b.1933. Editor: Haowa 49, author of 5 collections of poems, 4 books of essays and a short story collection. Associated with Hungry Generation Literary Movement.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

For Bird



By Subhankar Das


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 trace of flesh of previous life and thereafter
the cloud slept aslant oozing birds
hanging elongated whiteness even now within and outside

The City And Me




Think of the toy as a boy as a ploy who wanted the sea to tear him to see inside the sea, he that boy a ploy of a toy thought he.



Subhankar Das

Saturday, July 11, 2009

MY HYPNOTISM (Hanseder Prati )

By Subhash Ghosh


Exactly what it is -- already it was dark when I left my room – I cannot guess. A few steps only and suddenly my legs stop: Geese -- geese behind me, geese before me, geese all around, millions of geese; what a scene of geese! I cannot move; I see their wings, feathers: the whiteness of their feathers covers footpaths, streets, garages, tram lines; every corner they cover. The geese move their heavy reddish legs: everywhere I can hear their rhythmic footsteps. They flock together, they make a gathering; what a lot. These geese eat red lotus, pluck them: pluck and eat and throw the petals to each other. They brush their bodies with the lotus; they brush and take a rest. A white fire like mercury slips over the footpaths, houses, cars, garages, and squares. These unclaimed, white feathered, resting geese over the red lotus make my thought process stop; it becomes barricaded, my eyes tied by a kinkless wire to the Nadir and Zenith points. Even the unmindful lamp post guards in fear. Geese pluck lotus and eat, eat and pluck. I cannot understand why they are so despotic, these unclaimed geese!
Suddenly I whistle; only the geese hear; their bodies shiver, necks straighten, ears become alert; they open their red lips slightly; then and there a gigantic turbine begins to roar within my head.
Even the hairs of my body get excited: hairs become burning flame on my head. I hang my handkerchief over by breast and I begin to tremble, tremble in my hands and legs. Only they, only the geese, see my handkerchief (specially designed and coloured), straighten their necks, shake their wings and feathers. A faint call emanates from their throats. They are with the SOUND, with the CALL – the one I heard 12, 13 years back, back in the days of my puberty when I got a sickness in the blood – this call of the past, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13-years, awakes the whole sphere of my limbs, penis, penis-ends, the physio-libido system, silver fire, houses, roads, rows, and squares. My limbs, head throb; my blood pressure rises. I see these innumerable geese, wings and feathers. I begin to wave my handkerchief around my head; the mad handkerchief waves like a pointsman’s signalling flag, moves from east to west, from west to north, from north to south, on all sides and in all direction. The unmindful, frightened lamp posts begin to turn; they break into a thousand parts when dashed against the hidden waterhill. I see all around me by my search light. My hands continually signal. The geese straighten their white necks; each has turned its head from the red lotus, and I become restless in this sudden discovery. Looking at the handkerchief, they stir their lips and necks; they swell their wings and feathers. The turbine which has stopped earlier begins again its turmoil within my head.
I take the blue bottle from my pocket and spray the fluid over each and every geese; at once their bodies become limp. They begin to approach my shadow, as if hypnotized; they assemble around my shadow. My hands attempt to lengthen and try to catch them, one by one. But I control myself and begin to advance like a flute-piper; the hypnotized geese follow me. The flying handkerchief signal spreads. From time to time I see my trodden path by the searchlight. Each geese follows my footprints, follows my; they advance, and in my hand the restless fling of a pointsman.
We do not know when we come under the great sky. I see nothing but the white flames. The green grasses are burning. The geese quack in chocked voices. In the white fire they burn their past, stir their wings, and take off their clothes. And the turbine in the head roars higher. Now and then I see the geese at my back, the handkerchief flying overhead. Suddenly my eyes are captured by a pond of lotus: like a lodestone it attracts me. Gradually I approach it; the geese follow me, dumb and blind. On the four sides of the pond of lotus monument size “Shibalingas” grows. Within moments they become dense. And once again I see the geese behind me. They too become restless, seeing the pond of lotus. I take quick steps to the other side of the pond; I move the handkerchief; following the rhythmic signal of it the geese steps into water of the pond. They eat lotus, they pluck lotus, they plunder lotus. They make as much turmoil in the water as they like. I see their drunken wings to the farthest corner of the pond. They worship the blind god. They throw all their ornaments in the red fire of the lotus, unhesitatingly. The turbine in my head roars ten times louder. Then, seeing their undisciplined manners, I am taken by the idea that in how many way, in how many maximum ways, how many and how many maximum eggs I may have from them and getting these eggs I shall make them featherless, sickly, pale and when shall I drag them by their necks out of the lotus pond? Only determination begins to grow gradually with a waterfall-sound, in the turbine blades.

Subhash Ghosh :A prose writer and a founder member of Hungry Generation Movement in Bengali Literature. Has several books.29 April 1999 was his last day of his life.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

subhankar45 sent you a video: "Graffiti Research Lab L.A.S.E.R Tag"

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subhankar45 has shared a video with you on YouTube:

http://GraffitiResearchLab.com
Awesome video from the boys at graffiti research labs. Projecting graffiti with a laser pointer on the side of a building... CRAZY

The song is Don Carlos - Pass Me The Laser Beam

and heres how it works

"In its simplest form the Laser Tag system is a camera and laptop setup, tracking a green laser point across
the face of a building and generating graphics based on the laser's position which then get projected back
onto the building with a high power projector."
© 2009 YouTube, LLC
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Sorceress 2

By Sreedhar Mukhopadhyay


At the dead of the night, just when I
rouse from my shaken sleep;
with a sleeping baby in your arms,
in a highway motel at Malda.
Yours trying to be struck with sensitivity
over a cup of mildly raw tea.

Your golden-bordered maroon saree
which used to float in my dream
catches the colour play
--dark black slowly merges into the lemon-yellow.

The fire-drops of my too passionate desire
in my dark room melts the silver hands
of the ancestral clock;
and right then, your bus starts.

The more Kolkata is left behind with its
aromatic flavor, the more you are up to the snowy touch.

Oh! My dear Sorceress,
before cursing me, think at least for once,
how many times the combined stupor of you two
wrecked my broken ship.
Think how many times my grandpa returned
though hay way down, only to buy
a diamond rose pin for my beloved.

And me too, how many times have arrived
at the heart of black fire, in the venture of
collecting the seminal fluid of your fresh flower
in a trance.

I have been transfigured into the symbol of the
silence of those many lamps that floated down
the stream by people wishing long life for their loved ones.
In your journey you grow gradually distant
and fix me in the complex geometry of the galaxy
with a cerebral bonfire in me.
I know nothing right, but I’m sure to
trespass within you in the next morrow surely
and be as inseparable as the
feathers on the body of a duck.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Two Poems Of Sreedhar Mukhopadhyay

The Vegetable Lady


Vegetable Lady, you are all-enduring
It’s breakfast time now.

Your brimming sunlit body is now opening it’s eyes
secret diseases of the stale night will be healed soon.

You are not the damsel who copulates
with the donkey in a wine bottle.
In your expanding protoplasm I sleep, I dream, I wake up.

I do not collect souvenir for you in the Polynesian islands
I do not wait for you in front of the morgue.

You are the first virgin on earth without a tinge of sex and love.
To observe your quantum love-making with the sky
I lie awake for many a night.

“That moves. That does not move.
That is far off. That is very near.
That is inside all.
And that is outside all.”

Vegetable Lady
You will soak in rain all through the night.


The Night


Night, please do not leave us.

The yellow eggs will be hatched in sunlight
producing millions of immortal scorpions.
The young warrior who went to collect sacred weapon
from the Fire-River in the nether-world has not yet returned, yet.

Scientists are killing themselves.
There’s no energy left inside the womb of the earth for defense.
The magic power of incantations is vanishing fast.

The sick danger is vomiting, touching her face to the basin.
Soon she will be back on stage
covering up the tropical wounds on her breasts
under heavy cosmetics
she will dance to prolong the night.
Lascivious sixteen hundred girls are engaged to mislead the sun.

In the yellow egg the scorpions wake up from sleep.
We realize how fast the time is withering away.
Atom bombs are collapsing like flat balloons.
In no time our genitals are being transformed into incomplete flowers.

Blood is oozing out of the moon.

Oh Night! Become a mighty dictator, now.

Sreedhar Mukhopadhyay : Poet, Short story writer.Has seven books of poems and two books of short stories.

Friday, July 3, 2009

subhankar45 sent you a video: "Neda Agha Soltan, killed 20.06.2009, Presidential Election Protest, Tehran, IRAN"

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subhankar45 has shared a video with you on YouTube:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Neda Agha Soltan (ندا آقا سلطان) was shot to death on 20.06.2009 by security forces during a protest (against Iranian Presidential Election 2009) in IRAN.
Her name quickly became a rallying cry for the opposition who protested against Islamic Dictatorship
Roohash Shaad (peace be upon her)
© 2009 YouTube, LLC
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Monday, June 29, 2009

subhankar45 sent you a video: "Birth of A Pillow - In the Shadow of a Holy Book"

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An excerpt from the new film "Birth of A Pillow" by director Sharmy Pandey, Kolk An excerpt from the new film "Birth of A Pillow" by director Sharmy Pandey, Kolkata, India.
The scene traces the guilt and self-destruction of a priest as he is distracted by a woman across the courtyard.
film site: http://graffitiexpressions.blogspot.com/

music site: http://www.norumba.com

more details: http://imdb.com/title/tt0963747/
© 2009 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Monday, June 22, 2009

The Visual Words By Subhankar Das


The search for her is written on my skin

The Visual Words By Subhankar Das


The Sun, the sea and the unreal me.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Calcutta City Blues – Spring Sonata

By Pradip Choudhuri



A hurricane penetrated her body
and died in a flash
her eyes quivered
she was petrified
she knew the trick

A real love story defies authenticity
it falls a little short of pornography

Most people cannot handle love properly

The story must unfold like never before

An illegitimate child eschews his mother’s love-life

A poet is the eternal husband

Most fathers are cannibals

She took her first flight
just after her wings were clipped

An electrified cord in hand
she did not reply
If I would telephone tomorrow

Such huge breasts without a soul,
my god

The society that never existed is garbage

The woman rode away at dusk

Ignorance sometimes defeats the great will

She’s destined to set history glow
follow her, fool!

Sensitivity makes and unmakes poets

She’ll be a living legend 7 days after my death

While burning,
charcoal darkens the area with smoke

Wagner met Basho at Sanjo-Shi

After the consummation of a long screw
she said she never meant it
and demanded a little peck

I have no idea
if the wooden bridge still links
route #5 with eternity
is there a hyacinth that still blooms?

They say my friend who was in love
died from cirrhosis of the liver

An open rice field in autumn
at the northern edge of town
she told me later

she knew she loved me as
I vanished to the horizon
making a 7-km stretch

When I last met her
I did not see her canine teeth and pink gums
she must have eaten plenty of animal flesh
including porcupine

I had written the de’nouement
long before the drama was conceived

Sheer chance that she should
play this bloody role at the altar of the muse

She’ll know how she’s been devastated
long after the completion of the trauma

The doctor maintained
it was infectious
but not malignant till now
he gave me two xray-slides
to have them rechecked with Duncan& Apollo

If she comes
I’m not sure to say “no”
definitely

I still love Stravinsky’s “Le sacre’ du printemps”
--this bloody spring

I heard people say
she was beautiful
so I wrote beautiful poems

I never felt like reviewing her form
nor question what beauty was

Love framed with words is called poetry
poetry begins by breaking the frame

My dear, don’t disturb your mother
when she is seated beside me
dispelling the darkness, else
it will spell disaster for the planet


Pradip Choudhuri : The Hungry Generation Movement included among its membership the young Pradip Choudhuri.He is a poet and has several poetry books and has edited several poetry journals since 1975 -- most recently, the long-running ppHOO.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Two Poems Of Subhankar Das

DISTANCE

Doesnot matter whether it is Subhankar or no Subhankar.
Carrying my own corpse like this. No strength in the whole body.
The crumbling structure cage gradually bends and then becomes
smaller getting rounded. Rain water imprisoned in the
eye balls of my hand. The wind sucks-in sun salts. The way
I die would tell about that courage. This is enough. The
light of the sky and wind are sullen. It seems it is raining
but not actually. My knowledge may not be perfect. Oh my
wings. My wings.Wings. My wings. Because there is fire
in the wings--the bones of the featherless wings are
flying in the wind. Just now, they would lie on this paper.
Side by side. My wings, my bones, my hair.



The Colourful Cockroach

Instead of this piece, I wish to paint a big cockroach --
Small thorns in its long legs create shiverings.
Assume that this piece of writing is a colourful cockroach
just after a while it would fly away with a flapping sound.
Are you afraid of cockroaches?
When cockroach flies in your room helty-skelty--
You call your maid with a loud cry
and ask her to kill the cockroach
but if the cockroach too gets coloured!
If while getting coloured, it becomes a butterfly,
then you would have loved it.
You would not have thought of the drain,
the hole in the basin,
of the commod's backside,
or of the pan of the urinal,
the cockroach which has fallen into any of them
and trying to rise with outmost effort
even while seeing this, you are pissing upon it
with devilish pleasure and a little bit fearfully,
you would not have remembered, that
if a little bit more colourful it would have become,
with its wings getting shaped like a plant,
then you would not have jumped up if it sat upon your body
rather you would have looked coyly
or thought about that girl
around whose head, not butterflies rather cockroaches
circle in hundreds.

These two poems were translated from bangla by Bishwajit Sen and was published in Postmodern Bangla Poetry 2003. Editors Samir Roychowdhury, Tushar Gayen and Kamrul Hassan.

Subhankar Das :Writer,Producer,Publisher of Bangla experimental stuff.Produced 6 short films with more than 16 international film festival fame and appreciation.Has 16 published books of Bangla poetry.Translator Of Allen Ginsberg's poems in Bangla

Thursday, June 4, 2009

2 Poems Of Ateendriya Pathak


Come Some Day


Come to our home someday
I’ll show you the portrait of Tapati, Anal’s too
Faded yet you will know them
Change Tapati’s name if you will,
Tear Anal to pieces
May you raise a wall before me

It is you provided me with this home
Lest my feet touch them
With caution I’ve thrown the flowers
And the sacred leaves into the waste
Come someday they will tell you all
Even if a wall stands in front

The pictures are hung on the walls
They gather dust, spiders weave
And the pictures get a wrap
Knots tangle up my words
I am helpless inside the mesh
I cannot come out of the wrappings

Come someday and see all
Tapati and Anal and me
Our room, arranged table, wrapping on the table
And dust on the wrapping



I Grow Old


I look on
The boys go, the girls
The green fades on my person
Pale dry branches stretch
Motionless I stand
I grow old

They set me aside
Their gaiety goes on day and night
Who are they, who fathered them
Desperate they cross the bounds of birth
And march on
In full swing the fete unbearable
In the light in the darkness in the light in the darkness
In a circle within a circle
They have the glow of fire
Charred with fire their everything
They know how to burst into flames
But know not what it is to be burnt
Helpless I grow old

Leaving them to themselves
All the nights and days
Here I have the grey evenings
Colours shed on the way
Deep darkness lies ahead
As I fathom the depths of darkness
I grow old

Translated from Bangla : Satyendu Gupta

Sunday, May 17, 2009

0 to 4 : Sharmy Pandey’s Anti-poems

In English Transcreation : Parnab Mukherjee



Translator’s Note : It has been a decade of reading Sharmy. The transcreation fermented deep within me all these years. Till one night – I took paper to pen. Sharmy brings a unique phenomenon in Bangla underground poetry – it is the use of body as a metaphor.

Sharmy’s poems are graphically sexual and in that sense a weapon. I think she is amongst the very few living Bangla poets who have taken sexuality into realms of realism.

Yes, that is good literature
ask Falguni Roy
ask Ginsberg
ask Amiyabhusan
ask Piyush Dhar

In her poem “Falguni” Sharmy (English Transcreation by the author of this note) writes : “A blue light washes the golden 60s as the taxi driver leaves College street junction – 11 in the night and I lean my body against the seat and I watch the droplets of Magh in the window – Falguni nods his head – and there I can see his beard, white kurta, folded hands – my entire forehead filled with evening glow – my eyes filled with book fair at College Square dust – and I am moving as I am sitting with splintered hands – legs – teeth and my love for carbon…and the roadside tyre burns – and I return home – Falguni’s forehead filled with sweat – and I can still see – somewhere his attacked lips – his frame – stops at Harkata – for two cigarettes – ignition – coconut rope – silence – the fire – black door closes firmly – Subhashda were you there? The burning cigarette – black packet – disintegrating foil – paper – plastic – my body burns with heat – and Falguni after 3 decades has come to further grapple with my consciousness – bulb moves – there you are Falguni…”

Now
Sharmy
I don’t care what you prefer and what you don’t
I still think Ritwik lacked Satyajit’s finesse and that was a lacking
and I still read mainstream poetry
and I think Ferlingetti is better than Ginsberg
and Kalidas is better than Ibsen
and Lautrec is better than Dali
and Badal Sircar is a bigger genius than Shambhubabu
and I still feel Kanchenjunga is the best Bangla film ever made
and I do think
you are the only successor of Falguni Roy
in Bangla poetry
with all my biases
keep it up Sharmy
Bravo!



1. Till my death in Jerusalem


My drops and drop of tears
Wrongly executed strokes while swimming
And the abject tiredness thereafter
Every death is agglomeration of
Gathered wood and
The bluish tinge that colours the night darkness
If my finger melts
O girl! Put the trinklets on – look good
Or you’ll have to
Absorb my sorrow
Tear apart the sympathy
Drape it all with white cloud
Night break yet nothing stops
The nobility



2. 19/4/93


And the light which gave fire
forest stories and crime
songs deposit
liking for the invisible eye
stomach deposits coal
we love old chained darkness
bubble broth mixed in darkness
scissors that turn into hands
darkness that resides in the lungs
nylon melted city drops
you squeeze the neck and the breath
take out the strings of existence
open up your breasts
look for those eyes
emerging
enveloping
phosphorus
igniting the bones marrow




3. Collage


Draw
open up
Distort
Change, Change, Changing
on the earth
stains of reality
After 10 years
the rotten smell from the shake-up of the first book
somewhat less blood
sometime the mass of bones placed incorrectly
dreaming on, dying easily, sky coloured days,
yes, meanings keep changing
and then the gut is dissolved into vapor
let’s talk
let’s cough up all that we thought last year
first cover
first etching
or first love
existential crisscross
crisscross game
transparent colours
canvas can’t take the etching
skin peels off
so I think transparent mask
words will perforate
this mask
sky on my head and we will cross over the forest of fire
guava tree, bougainvillea smell
rain we creep out
where new born
will look at joy
we will keep crying
like a lizard that creeps up
yet no road in forest
no roof
no mind
no transformations
only a blueness where rainbows will change




4. Two Lines I Wanted To Write



Plane, Plane, Plane, Pilot Plane
From Plane came down Suchitra Sen