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

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

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

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.

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