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Malay Roychoudhury's poems translated in English

  Malay Roychoudhury’s poems

Translated in English

Nay-Ballad

From uncoiled wings of the burning swan

after sea of blood was born out of green caterpillar

that skin sheared moon from cloud’s underbelly

ordered  waves to abolish horoscopes on crabs’ breasts

.

On the evergreen epiglotis of lotus full to the brim

the pollen fiddling honey bee waved  her double scarf

searched for drunk village of pride red beating crowd

humming songs sleeping side by side of worried distance

.

( Translation of ‘Na-Ballad’. Written on 15 August 1999 )



A Quasi Governmental Report


Unarmed military  offered prayers

One tin water is for ten rupees

.

Underground river cut off from source

Habitually disgusted because of envy

.

Strong words used for sealing border

Public Works Department has broken

.

Since at the day’s end in share market

A woman’s body cut in two with sickle

.

Postal ballot in hand amid tomato field

Lying pristine with great expectations

.

Ambitious pair of shoes for parliament

Let them say whatever  face betray

.

As if  rice field is scared of Tiger’s roar

Daughter of cultivator is in ministry

.

Tired cuckoo-man grieving  due to son’s death

From football field corner in direct shot

.

Solved the problem of freedom movement

On the forehead of dead that was the truth

.

( Translation of ‘Ekti Adha-Sarkari Protibedan’. Written in 1996 )


Sonpur Fair, Evening of Gumrahi Tart


Sliding jute curtain

flickers in tent lantern

dot beauty gait her

small coins in betel  box

was counting tobacco scent

in broken wine glasses

.

half naked on rope cot

coin colour  country liquor

leather shoes well oiled

beat stick resting at corner

and yellow stain turban

cheese-penis landlord

.

atoned in elephant shit

put red petticoat on shoulder

switched song amplifier

hemp torn milk wet

eye on eye sharp dark

depends on who is beneath

.

myrobalan under tongue

betel nut cutter in waist

box full of scent tobacco

corset on blown breast

strung undies on string

one suck tumbling tart

.

artificial hair on bamboo pole

hypnotized hornet-man

mosquito on naked bum

his thighs are of mafioso

one and five coins for police

she is whatever fair or pure

.

( Translation of ‘Shonpur Mela, Gumrahi Baier Sandhya’ )


Ruffian


I who am a swapping lapwing’s bullet ridden sky

was born out of drowned water filled bison’s horn

in idle-eye noon beneath the pearly neem tree

was enjoying black blonde’s adornment of soft-paw brows

in rain drenched gold-flower tucked in coiffure’s knot

.

I who am standing in front of grilled horizon of meadow-dawn

on the trampled foot-printed grass of mourning sun’s wet-earth

heard nightlong wood mite’s  buzz in my last wallowed bed

thought why should purposefulness  be bad my dear

is not there art of  sweat-salt in labour of post a chair holds

.

I who asked  gallinules what taste do you get from  wings of butterflies

like  chipko playing bride of thrice-wed groom’s hoof-sound headgear

am in a ship evading  lighthouse’s beam a saw-teeth shark

in the Secretariat cage-lift with a clerk having breasts of Jamini Roy painting

bawled shrieks of rider throwing stallion’s bridle snapping neigh

.

I who am a whispering song sung in cricket’s musical notation

have trapped Hilsa fish shoals’ colours in vagina shaped nets

beneath the fig tree of hanged martyrs during freedom movement

from corners of caterpillar-chewed  perfumed lemon leaves

flying out in sky from  nape shaved hillock of stone chip proprietor


( Translation of ‘Tapori’. Written on March 1, 1990 )


Crematorium, 1992


During a paddy husk flying noon, from the corpse of a white-owl, gnat children

were stealing butter

with their hands having fragrance of rice crispies

picked up lightly the throttled shrieks of last akanda flowers

in the brittle breeze of Jaisalmer

sickly happy

at the spiraling city, blood drenched minute hand of wall clock

and the faces were beaming in wood fire warmth

pigeons fluttered making sounds of torn documents, just a bit

of living one’s own life

from those colours of sunset  eyebrows, on the sad boat at web-tide

dead body wrapped in coarse mattress

I walked towards the gold rimmed estuary

in my palm I held the split moment of a knotted storm

at the breast beating grief of thrown parched rice

that was only mine

The Clapper


                Then set out after repeated warning the grizzly

Afghan Duryodhan

in blazing  sun

removed sandal-wood blooded stone-attired guards

spearing gloom brought out a substitute of dawn

crude hell’s profuse experience

Huh

a night-waken drug addict beside head of feeble earth

from the cruciform The Clapper could not descend due to lockdown

wet-eyed babies were smiling

.

in a bouquet of darkness in forced dreams

The Clapper wept when learnt about red-linen boat’s drowned passengers

in famished yellow winter

white lilies bloomed in hot coal tar

when in chiseled breeze

nickel glazed seed-kernel

moss layered skull which had moon on its shoulder scolded whole night

non-weeping male praying mantis in grass

bronze muscled he-men of Barbadoz

pressed their fevered forehead on her furry navel

.

in comb-flowing rain

floated  on frowning  waves

diesel sheet shadow whipped oceans

all wings had been removed from the sky

funeral procession of newspaperman’s freshly printed dawn

lifelong jailed convict’s eye in the keyhole

outside

in autumnal rice pounding  pink ankle

Lalung ladies

echo forgets to shriek back sensing the beauty of sweat’s fragrance

.

thereafter

Operation Bullshit

ulcer in mouth

numb-penis young rebel’s howl on the martyr platform

non-veg heart daubed in onion paste

black eyed flowers

drenched lotus flower suffered from pneumonia

cloud’s forced roar on a hookah smoking octogenarian train

and lightning covered with gold laced spider web

frog-maid dropped a fat toad  from her back

.

creamy hell-fairy of Babylon

fed medicine tablets to north facing clouds

swirling green fireflies on castor-oil lamp

splints of songs from the crown of ruffled hair comet-face princess

swan with blood-stained feet

prayed for a spring season for the repatriated  armies

who arranged green-bed farmland for the shot-dead rebel’s parents

sulphur mist spread through secret savanna of lion-skin poachers

marriageable horseman The Clapper

Heigh ho

.

suffering from  angst of a little unrecognition

the garden which lifted the betel-nut palms on little finger

in long distance cyclone

below the lamppost

covered by clothes of rain

that broken gait is his form

the profile which searched for relaxing waves

the universe in tandava trance

mouth blocked with leucoplast tape inside a temple

The Clapper

.

when fire separates from smoke

within that flash

the epiglotis

feels bitter between two heart beats

feverish rebels invade through sluice-gate

palash flowers united themselves in blooming red during the cyclone

just like futureless in zoos

in the last breeze

tin-bordered clouds exploded firecrackers

as if  The Clapper will appear just now

.

in the morning the sweeper gathered all clappers assembled during night

in painless love

shoved sick Ganges river in a bag

one or three colour flapping rainbow

food plates were found in graves

 bone columns fell due to wails of exploiteds

nobody is happy

when asked how are you replied

fine

handed over rings of barbed wire from their waist

.

after the oath ceremony of depraved

corpse collectors started visiting towns and villages

people prayed for their right to cry

somewhere else The Clapper

in fractured health

was trying to correct the songs of birds

in star flickering darkness

pillow hugging rainy nights

fish smelling asthma of slippery catfishes in Palamou Jehanabad Rohtas districts

on the eyelids of snail-chin old woman gray dusts of  salt-petre-sulpher

.

for listening to songs of small wide-eyed fishes of half rotten Hooghly river

winter’s fine moult came out of cobra-girl’s attire

suddenly a porcupine

kapok flowers in red wedding dress

young sunflower stared on the side

healthy crab danced in hot oil raising her two scarlet hands

white muslin soft fairies leaped in rice-bowl

after he wept  in darkness The Clapper smiled in light

listened to the jingle of shackles with which he was tied to hospital bed

nightlong tick tock of incarceration of the table clock

.

( Translation of Bengali poem ‘Hattali’ )


Blood Lyric


Abontika, my house was invaded midnight  in search of you

Not like her not like him nor like them

Comparable not to this not to that not to it

.

What have I done for poetry plunging into  lava-spewing volcano  ?

What are these ? What are these ? Result of searches at home

of Poetry ? Bromide sepia babies from Dad’s broken almirah

of Poetry ! Mom’s Benares sari torn out of hammered box

of Poetry ! Breaths are recorded in the seizure list

of Poetry ! Show me show me what else is coming out

of Poetry ! Shame on you; girl’s half-licked guy ! Die you die

of Poetry ! Wave piercing sharks chew up flesh & bone

of Poetry ! AB negative sun from small intestine knots

of Poetry ! Asphyxiated speed stored in impatient footprints

of Poetry ! Delicate tart-glow in piss  flooded jail

of Poetry ! Mustard flower pollen on prickly feet of bumblebee

of Poetry ! Hungry farmer in dirty loincloth on salty dry land

of Poetry ! Rotten blood on feathers of corpse eating vultures

of Poetry ! Sultry century in faded humid spiteful crowd

of Poetry ! Black death shrieks of intelligence in guillotine

of Poetry ! You die you die you die why didn’t you die

of Poetry ! Fire in your mouth fire in your mouth fire

of Poetry ! You die you die you die you die you die

of Poetry ! Not like her not like him nor like them

of Poetry ! Comparable not to this not to that not to it

of Poetry ! Abontika, they came in search of you, why didn’t take you along !!

( Translation of Blood Lyric )

Mumbai 2011


Nail Cutting and Love

Tagore, this is for you after one fifty years :

who clipped your nails in offshore lands–

that foreign lady ? Or the chick adulators ?

There isn’t any photograph of yours with

your hands placed on laps of young ladies

cutting nails ; your feet on Ocampo’s knee ?


May be the girls on whose shoulder  Gandhi placed

his wings, cut his nails. As you know, it’s so painful

to reach the nail-cutter up to one’s feet at  old age–

oh, men like me without young girls for company

are aware. Love’s strange demand from senile age.


Gossipers say Sunil Ganguly did have for each nail

a struggling poetess. Joy Goswami also have had

the same ; the girls closed eyes and jumped  into muck.

I’d seen  Shakti Chattopadhyay’s lover clipping his nails

in the small Chaibasa room. Does Sharat do same for Bijoya ?


Yashodhara, did Trinanjan ever cut your nails ?

Subodh, have you ever took Mallika’s feet

on your lap and cut her nails ? Just a glance

at the feet of a poet tells you how lonely he is.

Think of Jibanananda ; he has been searching for

Banalata for thousand years for his nails to be cut.

( Translation of Nokh Kata O Prem )

Mumbai 2010

Immortality

Those who beat us to death after village court trial, they

did not spare you as well, Abontika ! We rotten corpses

drift in muddy Hooghly river ; what was our crime ?

You are Party boss’s wife, I am just an uncivil nobody.

There were endless praise of communism in last 33 years ;

nothing for lovers. For whose benefit were the tomes–

whatever are left of the rotten corpses of lovers remain

metamorphosed domestic bullocks yoked to grinding,

useless party-worker. Better to exude on chariot of waves

to the seas clutching each other in oceanic splendour.

( Translation of Amaratwa )

Kolkata 2006

 

Salt & Betrayers

You touched my sweat with your tongue

Abontika, and had said, ‘Ah salty beauty

heart of heart…scent of masculinity…’

That day, from Police custody to Court

rope tied to my waist and handcuffed

I walked along with murderers hoodlums;

circus loving crowd on both sides of road.


The betrayers, who volunteered in

court to testify against me, said, when

they came down from witness-box, ‘No,

the sweat was sweet and not salty ; thus

no question of treachery could arise–

and should not be marked as Betrayers.’

( Translation of Noon O Nimakharami )

Kolkata, 2005



The Spam Mistress


This is interesting ! In a flash you entered my desktop with mail

topless polygirl your smiling invite for a black night fling

The hungry wolf in me looks at  Baudelairian dark Venus.

In funny English you’ve written on your belly you love me

princess Africa hooker girl exposed trapdoor for  love

adorable soft thighs. What’s that,  colour or blood on shaman-nails ?


Which country are you from, mischief-sissy ? Kenya Uganda

Zambia Burkina Faso Congo Cameroon Sudan Niger ?

I am sure you’ve ganged up in Mumbai’s Nijerwadi.

How did you know I have never slept with an African chick !

Delightful to say the least your lighted lap sex appeal

you know quite well . That’s why invite for an embrace.

How many Rupees or Dollars for that experience

you haven’t indicated ; just a call to meet at Meera Road

Junction, where you’ll  descend in flesh from digital beauty.

( Translation of Spam Premika )

Mumbai 2009

Green Angelgirl

Oh, so you are the divine beauty I read about

in adolescence, whom Toulouse Lautrec, Rimbaud,

Verlaine, Baudelaire, Van Gogh, Modigliani et all

held on to waist curvature and took flights to

healing sweetness of  inebriated light

blazing hallucinatory juice of green lichen

on the coloured thighs of sizzling dance girls

who broke rhythms and picked up their

contorted feelings on paper or canvas


At De Wallen crowds in Amsterdam

wide mouth I ogle at almost naked

showcased blonde dark brown ladies

sourced from all over the world

pink halo tinkling in semi-dark rooms

twenty minutes fixed missionary style.

I count  Euros in my pocket and switch

to the old controversy of form versus content :

which generates more happiness and how

is Absinthe different from others ?

The guide retorts, ‘Why don’t you sleep

yourself and see semen turning green !’

( Translation of Sobuj Devkanya )

Amsterdam, 2007


Love Returns or Love Does Not Return

Saw you Abontika squatting on a milestone in gracious moonlit midwinter

your back and chest still carrying 44 year old dust and dry grass

wail mark of rashes  all over your body due to moon’s crime, aha, result of peity

you were shivering may be due to a vortex of hookworm in abdomen

your ivy strand golden hair flowed down your shoulders up to waist

seated on the sign-stone completely naked on third day of November

guides of death in guise of mosquitoes sang Death Metal around your head

you do not remember the last lover who deserted you at this place.

I said, ‘Abontika, do you still possess the 9mm pistol

with which you had killed me ?’

Waving your Naxal hand you brought down the pistol from air and

emptying all bullets on my chest you said,’Ya, here it is !’

I scooped out  44 year old bullets from my chest and placed on your invisible hand–

You said, ‘That’s good, we shall meet again Comrade.’

( Translation of Prem Pherey Pherey Naa )

Mumbai 2009

Elopegirl

I could not find you in your bedroom , what a mess, am at a loss

Abontika, which river has seduced you ? I unanchored my iceberg boat

have a look, in  Keleghai Churni Gumni Joldhaka Mayurakshi Kangsaboti rivers’

currents, no trace of scent of your sweat, am sad, the fishermen also

could not find your blind touch, full-moon is in the dark,

how would I manage, onions are not weeping, shit,

bangles are clamourless, in which dream you have saved the kisses

I could not locate, you could have informed someone, reflection of your face

you had thrown away  along with mirror, oh what a problem, at least

you could have left behind bed sighs, why the almirah is empty,

whom did you donate hair-oil from pillow and birth-mark of your navel

I could not recognize the voice of your mind, toothbrush is without music

slippers are without dance, why do you give such agony Abontika, your

name used to be tied with your fallen hair, I could not find even after sweeping the floor,

your office going road is waiting for you inside cobweb of spiders

your fish-breath drawing  routes on the palm has gone astray

there, there, that bugger with whom you fled, his

musical notes of  shoe-marks are loitering on the marble floor

( Translation of Elopekanya )

Mumbai 2012


Stoniness

Midnight may be called a kind of colour dogs dislike

stones too despise being locked up whole life within its breast

if picked up by someone at midnight it hurts their solid guilt feeling

it wakes up and listens to the dog’s moans

why is there such difference with a dead snail which even after death

has the right to nurture her lover’s gestures inside heart

probably because of blessings of sighs of couples

even a drunkard would not throw a dead snail at a dog

would abuse if he steps on it and hurts himself

but that is done by all lovers amid busy crowd

in the flesh of the snail whispers of his lover

continuously  resonate to  respond to sex-waves

pity the stone without a female organ

( Translation of Pathorata )

Mumbai 2012

Counter Discourse

Relentless salty invite of sea was telling me I am not the same I used to be dear

I am not because after my legs were tied to railing of a hospital bed


cultivators’ river and labourers’ river were flowing separately on both side of bed

an enforced discipline in which the sun rises and sets only once throughout the day


if one has to draw comparison one would say it is not wedding vows of frog and snake

when the half-wet seed has for the last time embraced its sprout


I knew I was not as I used to be as locks of all words have been opened

days are such that roses refuse to bloom without bonemeal of saints at roots


and some bugger has spitted red at the corner of the sky and fled

may be… may be… the raven seated upon the head of scarecrow


from the rag-stitched water of the pond during springtime noon

I have cleaned and picked up the last piece of shadow of my own

( Translation of Counter Discourse )

Kolkata,  30 March 2000

Objectivity

Regaining consciousness in a trickle

Hands & feet tied and mouth gagged on a railroad track

The silent whole

Shirt and trousers daubed in dew

Whining crickets drone

A rural gloom studded with night-chilled stars

Can’t shout as mouth is wool of spew

Ribs and shinbone smitten — not possible to move

Stiff stonechips bite at back

How beautiful is the world and peace everywhere allround calm

A pinhead light is rushing on rail route piercing the one-eyed dark

( Translation of Pratyaksha )

1986

Kurmitola, Jehanabad, 1989, Evening

Mother

while standing in waterweed, in the kitchen,  in her petticoat, was caught

by police, her hair unkempt

in wintery autumn flying horses stored in glass jar held in left hand, knitted in loincloth

a comet from the yellow piece of cloud

she floated her boat made of hay, unconcerned, lilies within shouts of children

I know what will happen to her now

Abdul, Gafoor’s brother, was first to bring the news

but Mother gave up, hazy domesticity in the dusts of her brows

why did she conceal behind Goddess Kali’s lamp-oil

broken pulses and rice crumbs  brought from Murshidabad

a little sun tainted skin, in unknown fear, palm on her chin, forgot her own name

damp shadows on her hung face

brain completely naked

in drizzling dewdrops, smiled a skinny deer

wooden shoes on snow, sky facing wolves, she cried whole day

the priest

drew blood in a syringe from her hand

pain at the corner of her lips, was tired to climb the stairs

( Translation of Kurmitola, Jehanabad, 1989, Sondhya )

To Save People of West Bengal

I do not know why

inside pinkflesh jailhouse of a shark’s stomach

during domesticated dangers in a wet honest alley of wayward rains

when the 205 route bus carrying darkness on shoulders reached Babughat

driver said go carefully to other side of river as it has gone for spawning to the sea

you must be aware apart from rotten corpses other funerals have been banned


I do not know why

in the No Entry zone where only scoundrels win

saw the parasite-ear crater-mouth reporter counting

with painless hands of Duhshasan ashes of last breath from burning pyre

whose only job was to contradict other people’s opinion in the motherland of bugs


I do not know why

men who prefer to lend tongue instead of ear to rumours

when they made it free to board and eat for accepting disorder as peace

victory arose from self named grave of poison smeared sheepfold

everyone was shouting Hail Revolution but we do not want transferable jobs


I do not know why

the day ditched girl inside frog-echo water-well

floated upward — sweet memory of iron-weight at grocer’s shop

was balancing wheat flour for Satyanarayan Puja

demeanour was such as if southern breeze was tickling fishes brought on land


I do not know why

faster than dementia of a wound’s  remembrance  of pain

I saw funeral ants in a row carrying candy particles on corpse’s forehead

( Translation of Pashchimbanger Manushkey Banchatey Holey )

Mumbai, 17 February 1999

Democratic Centralism

To be honest I became  plywood leader after giving up cultivation of teeth & nails

when I am in disguise my real appearance slips out

is there any original work other than  self-hostility ? Tell me !


To be honest I am a loose eagle haggard in  dilapidated sky

I feign to pretend and pass it on as life

I lead domesticity in a  hackery on swimmer dribbling  stream


To be honest I hammer out stone from heart of stone and find

through sandy glance rows of turtle-flesh eater gout sufferers

searching for wing-flight smiles from drowned girl’s livid lips


To be honest while I weep during adulterated smoke  offerings of ghee

I create truth create death create up & down circles

the snake was inside its hole I insert my hand to bewitch it as well.

( Translation of Ganatantrik Kendrikata )

Kolkata, 27 November 1999

The Empty Womb

After having layers of dust on ear lobes on breeze stitched paddy field

when cobra children started dancing around me

pointing nude fingers toward husky darkness

I saw jingled sounds of sunrise amid whispers of rain

the four squared universe seen through  soft barrel hole of a rifle

which was encircled by a thorn crowned slogan-wet wall


After the garden came forward to receive me

dancing bells of cobra mom-dad were strewn all over grass

and cobra housewife reminded several times

she would expose and reveal the real thing


The lady whose beauty I had ravished just by a glance at her

I could glean through twisted arms of her sexless embrace

my horoscope on dazzling  liquid breast of the crab

licked with smooth kissing lips by  cobra housewife


At the happy eating festival of the menu-card funeral

the sick street dog licked its own shadow from bodyfur

and over the bread crumbed map only then

ant columns marched from one country to another

( Translation of Shunya Garbha )

Ahmednagar, 12 October 1997

Two Worlds

We know we are incapable of redemption

but because of it why in your rain-echo drenched stingy  lungs

piranha shoals would swim wearing pink raincoats


Rumour is your veins carry ashen flight of one-dialect pigeons

we’ve heard you used to tame fat-belly clouds with your blind vision

you used to tuck  donkey brays of your daily diary in your armpits

and now you claim that even Karna of Mahabharata did not donate his vote


Everybody is aware that only coffin bearers are immortal

since you did not get someone to talk to in  darkness of semen

you searched for an one-shot lover in  clocktowerless city

you scoundrels don’t you have any address or it is your sinister blood

that the wrinkled mirror carries your pulpable image throughout the day


Shame shame shame you want back the breath after you breathe it out

I thought you would apply your power of doubt

instead you are shredding  your prehistoric body-hair with ding dong cotton-gin


My best wishes you get both hands of Duhshasana  of Mahabharata

with which you may count the sparkles of flints in your fort of smoke

( Translation of Duti Bishwa )

27 April 2000

Bite

India, Sir, how long will you carry on like this, really, I feel awful

India, I ate your jail food for  complete one month which means for 30 days

No job since September 1964, you know India, would you mind lending me 20 bucks ?

India, those guys are very bad, even rats are eating away your grains

What did Suhrawardy advise you in the Control Room India ?

O tell me — I am really happy, promise, I can make faces !

And I do not know where Kolkata is hurtling in this bitter renaissance

India, why don’t you get a few of my pulp published in Nabokallol magazine

I’ll also become saint, or guide us to Santiniketan

We would be servant of literature, you would give me a set of cultural attire

Let us go to country liquor den Khalasitola today evening, we would cook Bengali culture

India, why aren’t you exploding an atom bomb,  fireball suits the sky !

Do you want to try LSD ? Both of us would sunbathe at Nimtala crematoria

India, here, take this handkerchief, wipe your specs

In this election please help me win, I’d contest from Chilika lake

Which lecture of yours is going to be published in tomorrow’s newspaper, India ?

I have snatched the key from them which keeps you going

India, I surreptitiously read the love letters written to you

Why don’t you cut your nails ? There are dark patches beneath your eyes

Why don’t you apply colour to your teeth these days ?

You kill in revenge but blame us for murder when we  follow you

Don’t think I am just a cat’s paw

How about a self-compromise eating one’s own heart

India, withdraw Section 144 of Penal Code from paddy fields

Send all great books to Vietnam, Huh Huh

May be the war will stop

India, tell me what exactly you want !!

( Translation of Kamor )

Hungry Bulletin, 26th January 1966.

Chicken Roast

Puff your plume in anger and fight, cock, delight the owner of knife

smear sting with pollen and flap your wings.

As I said : Twist  arms and keep them bent

roll the rug and come down the terrace after disturbed sleep

Shoe-boots—-rifle—whirring bullets—shrieks


The aged undertrial in the next cell weeps and wants to go home

Liberate me let me go let me go home

On its egg in the throne the gallinule doses

asphyxiate in dark

fight back, cock, die and fight, shout with the dumb


Glass splinters on tongue—breast muscles quiver

Fishes open their gills and enfog water

A piece of finger wrapped in pink paper

With eyes covered someone wails in the jailhouse

I can’t make out if man or woman


Keep this eyelash on left-hand palm–and blow off with your breath

Fan out snake-hood in mist

Cobra’s abdomen shivers in the hiss of feminine urination

Deport to crematorium stuffing blood-oozing nose in cotton-wool

Shoes brickbats and torn pantaloons enlitter the streets


I smear my feet with the wave picked up from a stormy sea

That is the alphabet I drew on for letters.

( Translation of Murgir Roast )

1988

Repeat Uhuru

Hood-covered face, hands tied

at the back…On the alter plank

breeze frozen in bitter hangman’s odour

who composes time ?

Doctor Cop Judge Warden or None !


I unfurl myself in the dungeon cloud

where salt-sweating history of dirt is tamed

the rope quivers fast at first

Weak jerks thereafter calm, with dumbness of bawl

wherein bards and butchers repeat their fall

I revive my rise.


This rising is singular. None other for the monster of words

whose feet adore the ruined universe.


I don’t face the gallows every time to keep alive

a dynasty of faith of those who are spawned for death.

Translation of Arekbar Uhuru

Homology

I am ready to be mugged O deadly bat come

Tear off my clothes, bomb the walls of my home

Press trigger on my temple and beat me up in jail

Push me off a running train, intern and trail

I am a seismic yantra alive to glimpse the nuke clash

A heathen mule spermed by blue phallus ass

( Translation of Monushyatantra )

1986


Chicken Roast

Puff your plume in anger and fight, cock,

delight the owner of knife

smear sting with pollen and flap your wings.

As I said: Twist the arms and keep them bent

Roll the rug and come down the terrace after disturbed sleep

Shoe boots ….rifle….whirring bullets….shrieks

The aged undertrial in the next cell weeps and wants to go home

Liberate me ... let me go... let me go home.

On its egg in the throne the gallinule doses

Asphyxiate in dark... fight back, cock, die and fight, shout with the dumb.

Glass splinters on tongue….breast muscles quiver

Fishes open their gills and en fog water

A piece of finger wrapped in pink paper

With eyes covered someone wails in the jail house I cant make out if man or woman.

Keep this eyelash on left hand palm…blow off with your breath

Fanout snake-hood in mist .... Cobra’s abdomen shivers in the hiss of femme urination.

Deport to crematorium stuffing blood-oozing nose .....in cotton wool

Shoes brickbats and torn pantaloons en litter the streets

I smear my feet with the wave picked up from a stormy sea

That is the alphabet I drew on for letters.

(Translation of ‘Murgir Roast)1988


Counter-Man

Circumcision made me apostate

I thumped thighs and turned Tartar

The king will go and evil eves raped

Just as tutored Nadir Shah

I’d kiss the sword and leap in air

On galloping mare a burning torch

I proceed towards falling outposts

The metropolis burns

A naked priest elopes with Shiva’s phallus.

(Translation of ‘Palta Manush’) 1985


Preparation

Who claims I am ruined? Since I’M without fangs and claws?

Are they necessary? How do you forget the knife

plunged in abdomen up to the hilt? Green cardamom leaves

for the buck, art of hatred and anger

and of war, gagged and tied Santhal woman pink of lungs shattered

by a restless dagger?

Pride of sword pulled back from heart? I don’t have

Songs or music. Only shrieks, when mouth is opened

Wordless odor of the jungle; corner of kin and sin-sanyas;

didn’t pray for a tongue to take back the groans

power to gnash and bear it, fearless gunpowder bleats:

stupidity is the sole faith---maimed generosity---

I leap on the gambling table, knife in my teeth ...Encircle me

rush in from tea and coffee plateaux

in your gumboots of pleasant wages

The way Jarasandha’s genital is bisected and diamonds glow

Skill of beating up is the only wisdom

In misery I play the burglar’s stick like a flute

Brittle affection of the wax-skin apple

She-ants undress their wings . ....before copulating

I thump my thighs with alternate shrieks: vacate the universe

get out you omni-competent

conch shell in scratching monkey-hand

lotus and mace and discus-blade Let there be salt rebellion of your own saline sweat

along the gunpowder let the flint run towards explosion

Marketeers of words daubed in darkness

In the midnight filled with young dog’s grief

In the sick noon of a grasshopper sunk in insecticide

I reappear to exhibit the charm of stiletto.

(Translation of ‘Prastuti’) 1985


Motorbike

I am on mobike Yezdi Yamaha

When flanked by horizon gallop backwards through sand blizzard

tinsel clouds explode at my feet without helmet

and speed-split air at eighty

in midsummer' s moon

each sound-cart recedes

onrushing lorries flee in a flash

no time to brood but Yes

accident expected anytime

may even turn into a junk-heap in a drought-nursed field.

(Translation of ‘Motor Cycle) 1986



The Light

I get a thud-kick in pitch dark thick on belly and tumble

Hands tied at the back on damp floor shack to humble

Lights flash on face eyes blind in case I spin

Then lights go off a boot or two rough on chin

I feel blood drips and snail down the lips in trickle

The glare blinks on and off and on and off in ripple

A hot metal rod scalds hard breast broad to snip flesh warm

The lights hem in piercing thin a ruthless swarm

Red eyes get shut in blinding rut my vision erode

Final blackout in grisly rout in elliptic node

I prepare my grit to encounter the hit as a fightback code.

(Translation of ‘Aalo’)1985


Classic Fraud

Classic fraud get down from palanquin

I’ve quit the job of a slave

A chopper now seethes from waist up to shin

It’s not a free kitchen to be in the queue with an enamel tin

O virgin money come crisp and rave

Green-frock butterfly in the unemployed’s land

Swoosh and jingle in a parachute. And

Cops keep a watch and censor my letters

Heavenly boss---how long in fetters

I’ll spring up on all fours and snip your neck

Climb the corn shack and wave

Henna-dyed hair on a hay-staired deck. Well!

Classic fraud come down on your own or face hell.

(Translation of ‘Dhrupadi Jochchor’)1986


Objectivity

Regaining consciousness in a trickle

Hands and feet tied and mouth gagged on a railroad track

The silent whole

Shirt and trousers daubed in dew

Whining crickets drone

A rural gloom studded with night-chilled stars

Can’t shout as mouth is wool of spew

Ribs and shinbone smitten---not possible to move

Stiff stone chips bite at back

How beautiful is the world and peace everywhere all round calm

A pinhead light is rushing on the route piercing the one-eyed dark.

(Translation of ‘Pratyaksha’)1986


House Arrest

I kick the door planks and reveal a midnight yell

Whoever’s home I’ll break it open.

Take care of your deity, your woman, gold and slaves

False documents, Henceforth the hearth is mine

Throw off your things on the road when day breaks.

Summer from corn, coconut shadow from doormat,

afternoon clouds from clothes

Affection from jewels and hunger from dinner utensils

Kick them all out through the main entrance as a token.

Not arrested now as there are many more in line.

(Translation of ‘ Baridakhal’) 1986


Dilemma

While returning I’m hemmed in. By six or seven. All

Have weapons. I knew it when I came

Something bad was going to happen. But framed

My mind that first attack would not be from my call.

A mugger holds the shirt-collar and blurts: Want a dame?

Why here? Mama and not in chawl?

I keep my cool, teeth on teeth. Right then a blow on chin

Feel the hot blood lather.

A jerk and I sit down. In my socks I spin.

A stainless knife beams in halogen shadow

Rama inscribed on one side and Kali on other.

The crowd disperses. Power in the name of gods

Not known to all. Why are men jinn

Why don’t they love the lover? The six or seven encircling me

Withdraw mysteriously.

(Translation of ‘ Dotana’) 1986



Uncle Chapter

Yudhishthira

Hey you Pandava Chap Yudhishthira

Climb down from your multi storied flat and come in the lane

Brihg Krishna Bhima Nakula and other lackeys

Daggers hockey sticks soda water-bottles and iron chains

Tell Draupadi to have a glimpse from the sill

I’m weaponless alone

Dhrishtadumna Duryodhana not with me

I donated my forefinger at your behest when I was young

Your victory-cry will now be ripped open

Unchain the bitch of mahaprasthana and fight me

I’ll fight left-handed yet won’t budge

Call me mugger and call me lumpen

I’ll fall on the footpath with frothing lips

Speeding mules will emboss their hooves on my back

You’ll flay my navel with broken blade

Press cigarette butts on my arse

Bludgeon my ribs with a wool=covered mace

But I’ll show you

I’ll rap my feet on the ground and put a halo around the earth.

(Translation of ‘Meshomashay Parba’)1986


Existence

Midnight knock at the pin drop door.

You have to replace a dead undertrial.

Shall I put on a shirt? Gulp a few morsels?

Slip off through the terrace?

Door-planks shatter and wall plaster flakes

Masked men enter and enflank

“What’s the name of that squint-eyed guy

Where’s he hiding?

Speak up, or come with us !”

I choke in terror: Sir, yesterday at sunrise

He was lynched by a mob.

(Translation of ‘Astitwa’) 1985


Throne of the Weevil

O antsucker tongue of the shy mammal

delighted in one-horned matrimony

terrestrial aqua and aerial

host-beast of the smuggler moll

ruminant antelope

earth roamer water-cat the perfumed bitch

ate up the sonorous black hole and established

a slave kingdom in this ditch.

(Translation of ‘Ghunpokar Singhasan’) 1986


From ‘Jakham’

Awning ablaze with toxic fire above me

I lie watching the winged blue of this crawling sky

putting down the crushing anger of my suffering

I cross exam my nocturne doubts

pushing a gramophone needle over the lines of my palm

I scan the prophecy

armature on the left turned slag long ago

now eye flesh twitching in the smoke of malay’s burning skeleton

dismantled tempests sweep by at 99mph

uniform queues of wrist watched zombies tattle trade cyclic seine

a swinging bat threatened me in this black dungeon

800,000 doorless jamb stare for eternity over the liquid meadow

16 division ravens whirl around my torso for 25 years

my bones reel clutching my raw wounds

my peeled flesh blood

flaying my skin I uncover arrogant frescoes of my trap

ageless sabotage inside the body

patrolling darkness in the hemoglobin

I’m deciding what to do with me now

I’ve inherited emergent vengeance polished for 6000 years

tugging at man’s insensibility scraping old plaster of my skin

fingernails look magnanimous after the meal

people are returning home on tortoise back

failing to search out my heart in my body

man training man the fair-spoken codes of war & hospitality

gathering fallen limbs from the torso we’ve to retreat to

I lie lazily closing both eyelids wrapped in sun flakes

coked reeks conspiring in my veins turned loose

ohh

from the vapour of brain’s angry kernel

technicoloured nitrocellulose oozes over dreamlined retina

letters of sympathy heaped against half closed futureless door

my black muscles rust

equally true corpses of geniuses & fool... slime simultaneously into earth

each woman is waiting with a conversion chart in her desolate womb

Gandhi & Attila’s equi-chemical blood

streams through  same veins

nothing happens to me... nothing will happen to this earth either

neither could I practice usury like the rest of mankind

nor shoot dice made of human bones

seeds floating in air try to slouch roots

into my unfertile swea-tbeads

I dreamt of my failure in Bumghang’s apple orchard

I couldn’t choose the luxurious comfort of an insect

sleeping in the cushioned kitchen of a corn’s kernel

I’ve been spitting inside my body for the last 25 years

scraping off from mirror’s knave mercury self-savior imprints of my violent face

each & all having a certificate from the burning-ghat doctor

for their performance of duty until last breath

2000 hounds released from out of my skull

haunting me for 25yrs

sniffing the alleys trod by women I advance toward their

amateur abode

my heart-lump split open in terror

when I looked at footprints on dark pavement

sounds of dripping sand have evoked my skin pores

my spine burnt smoke billow through chimneys of skin

ants drag flesh copses through moth made clay veins

damn barefoot amid sea gulf I proceed

to sullen den of vultures

I’ve experienced magic simultaneously of food

concealing envious tints of blood & pus

perverse sugarcane brain sucks

liquid philanthropic dirt out of earth

my Dirt my Love my Blood

clouds drift by like pieces of discarded bloodseained cloth

I now recall Bluegirl’s sick left tit….

Vibrating with heart’s feeble flutter

Life’s whacklings are to be endured until death

with a dumb tongue

a blazing mantle hangs in place of my heart machine

plus-minus signs and compasses with broken needles

stream through my arteries

rifle’s dazzling nozzle & diesel-roller sleep

in iron-ore of earth

and stored deep down in zink’s brain

newspapers’ Yes & newspaper’s No

my feet do not realize

I’m controlling their speed & direction

I’m not sure if I’ll have to become unworldly

paying excise with an untransferable woman

I gloomed all through the winter forging my own signature

was born not wanting to be born

now without unlacing my shoes

I want to plunge into the glow less dark

everybody is making arrangements for Tomorrow

shoes are having sympathetic polish this evening

only for Tomorrow

yet even circular roads get hold of man’s legs

one day or the other

lusting for limbs 303 greased cartouches

stashed in new pineboxes rush up to frontiers of countries

2510 years after Buddha sprawled on Gandhi-lawn

model-’65 leftover shoes & umbrellas of cop & non-cop clashes

in the warehouse of cocaine & counterfeit money

Indian & Chinese citizens mirth together in ecstasy

I had lifted a 5-paise coin from a blind beggar’s palm

I had looted benevolent money of hearse-corpses

Out of parched groin

crossed death-panic on a boat not knowing how to swim

I may be censored I can not be disregarded

(Translation of ‘Jakham’)1965


 

Stark Electric Jesus

Oh I'll die I'll die I'll die

My skin is in blazing furore

I do not know what I'll do where I'll go oh I am sick

I'll kick all Arts in the butt and go away Shubha

Shubha let me go and live in your cloaked melon

In the unfastened shadow of dark destroyed saffron curtain

The last anchor is leaving me after I got the other anchors lifted

I can't resist anymore, a million glass panes are breaking in my cortex

I know, Shubha, spread out your matrix, give me peace

Each vein is carrying a stream of tears up to the heart

Brain's contagious flints are decomposing out of eternal sickness

other why didn't you give me birth in the form of a skeleton

I'd have gone two billion light years and kissed God's ass

But nothing pleases me nothing sounds well

I feel nauseated with more than a single kiss

I've forgotten women during copulation and returned to the Muse

In to the sun-coloured bladder

I do not know what these happenings are but they are occurring within me

I'll destroy and shatter everything

draw and elevate Shubha in to my hunger

Shubha will have to be given

Oh Malay

Kolkata seems to be a procession of wet and slippery organs today

But i do not know what I'll do now with my own self

My power of recollection is withering away

Let me ascend alone toward death

I haven't had to learn copulation and dying

I haven't had to learn the responsibility of shedding the last drops

after urination

Haven't had to learn to go and lie beside Shubha in the darkness

Have not had to learn the usage of French leather

while lying on Nandita's bosom

Though I wanted the healthy spirit of Aleya's

fresh China-rose matrix

Yet I submitted to the refuge of my brain's cataclysm

I am failing to understand why I still want to live

I am thinking of my debauched Sabarna-Choudhury ancestors

I'll have to do something different and new

Let me sleep for the last time on a bed soft as the skin of

Shubha's bosom

I remember now the sharp-edged radiance of the moment I was born

I want to see my own death before passing away

The world had nothing to do with Malay Roychoudhury

Shubha let me sleep for a few moments in your

violent silvery uterus

Give me peace, Shubha, let me have peace

Let my sin-driven skeleton be washed anew in your seasonal bloodstream

Let me create myself in your womb with my own sperm

Would I have been like this if I had different parents?

Was Malay alias me possible from an absolutely different sperm?

Would I have been Malay in the womb of other women of my father?

Would I have made a professional gentleman of me

like my dead brother without Shubha?

Oh, answer, let somebody answer these

Shubha, ah Shubha

Let me see the earth through your cellophane hymen

Come back on the green mattress again

As cathode rays are sucked up with the warmth of a magnet's brilliance

I remember the letter of the final decision of 1956

The surroundings of your clitoris were being embellished

with coon at that time

Fine rib-smashing roots were descending in to your bosom

Stupid relationship inflated in the bypass of senseless neglect

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

I do not know whether I am going to die

Squandering was roaring within heart's exhaustive impatience

I'll disrupt and destroy

I'll split all in to pieces for the sake of Art

There isn't any other way out for Poetry except suicide

Shubha

Let me enter in to the immemorial incontinence of your labia majora

In to the absurdity of woeless effort

In the golden chlorophyll of the drunken heart

Why wasn't I lost in my mother's urethra?

Why wasn't I driven away in my father's urine after his self-coition?

Why wasn't I mixed in the ovum -flux or in the phlegm?

With her eyes shut supine beneath me

I felt terribly distressed when I saw comfort seize Shubha

Women could be treacherous even after unfolding a helpless appearance

Today it seems there is nothing so treacherous as Woman & Aet

Now my ferocious heart is running towards an impossible death

Vertigoes of water are coming up to my neck from the pierced earth

I will die

Oh what are these happenings within me

I am failing to fetch out my hand and my palm

From the dried sperms on my trousers spreading wings

300000 children gliding toward the district of Shubha's bosom

Millions of needles are now running from my blood in to Poetry

Now the smuggling of my obstinate legs are trying to plunge

Into the death-killer sex-wig entangled in the hypnotic kingdom of words

Fitting violent mirrors on each wall of the room I am observing

After letting loose a few naked Malay, his unestablished scramblings.

( Translation of Prachanda Baidyutik Chhutar )


I Danced with Tagore

Arrey Rabindranath, remember? I danced with you?

raised half-folk ding-dong around my fingers on monochord

from crowded Free School Street to the clove market of Sadar St

while walking along you said I am coming from Silaidaha

on my way to Alumuddin Office.


On your lips made of fire and water there was still

trace of Holy Song what heat what heat you threw away the

gabardine robe I found leeches on your pink person

there are lots of leeches in rainy Jorasanko


At the whiff of mutton kebab from Selim’s shop, What are

the muslims cooking, when you asked he replied, ‘Don’t you

know? Its bull meat! Why don’t you give a try? ‘


In the tea stall bald-headed goat-bearded Vladimir Illich

golden hair Vera Ivanova Jasulich and like your silver beard

Axelrod and Martov whose cheek was quivering

you asked, Where are their torsoes?


Since I was unable to stop my dance you wanted to

donate me your monochord as whoever got a chance has taken

away dances from your feet and now even during daytime

halogen lamps are on what joy what joy


Your three-legged chair is lying on Sadar Street balcony

you had broken it while making tumultous love, it is written

in your Autobiography with year & date what love what love


The horse of your carriage is singing like a cuckoo

grandpa Rabindranath and all those spawned from your

sperm are eating fried horse-grams from the floor

What are these? I replied, ‘crows’. What are those

called? I said, ‘You better ask Selim, he raises gangland

money in this area.’ What divinity what divinity.

(Translated from his original Bengali poem “Ki Bishaya Ki Bishaya”)



Sanitary Napkin

Malay Roychoudhury | Translation: Uttaran Das Gupta


Love is like that girl, who

had to drop out of school;

Three-and-a-half days each month,

Must wear dry grass tied in cloth;

In monsoon, the grass is green,

So, ash wrapped in cloth,

to soak up the blood,

seated quietly, alone, book-less.

Translation of Sanitary Napkin by Uttaran Dasgupta







Please Don’t Tell My Grandmother

He asked you not to like me,

So why did you, Neera?

Even now, I perform breaststrokes in caterpillar-stuffed north eastern clouds

He didn’t ask me for any poems for 50 years,

So why are you asking now, Neera?

Even now, standing in 10-foot-deep water, I wield icy rods

He wrote an editorial on my sub-judice case,

Turning an editor, why are you asking for my writing, Neera?

Even now, I love flatbreads stuffed with smoked penguin fat

He did not confess to being my anthology’s publisher

Why did you confess, Neera?

Even now, I have family-pack yawns in the face of families,

He didn’t like pronouncing my name

So why are you telling it to youths, Neera?

Even now, in bloody waters, I join the Bollywood chorus of tiger sharks

He had said I have nothing of a true writer

So why do you think I do, Neera?

At Imlitala, I knew rat roasts don’t taste too good without charcoal smoke

He said I have nothing creative in me

So why do you think I do, Neera?

Having burnt bank notes worth Rs 5,000 crore, I smelt death

He said I’ll never write poetry

So why do you think I have, Neera?

On the banks of Amsterdam’s canals I have heard doddering old men sing limericks

He transcended from sorrow to anger and anger to hate

Why are you so generous Neera?

Please don’t tell my grandmother.

Translation of Aamar Thakumakey Jeno Bolben Na by Uttaran Dasgupta


Comedy is Tragedy’s Parasite


What was the name of that editor of Janata? 1961:

On the front page, he wrote: “Won’t last, won’t last!”

Him? Maybe he is called Mogambo.

Then 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966

Who was that short man, wrote in the daily literary supplement

“That? How long will that last? Won’t last.”

What was his name? That man, at the Esplanade book stall

Can’t remember? Where did he go, that man?

In a famous little magazine he wrote—

Him? Maybe he is called Dr Dang

Then 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972

Can’t recall? Thick glasses, a swift stride—

Him? Maybe he is called Gabbar Singh

Why can’t you remember the names their fathers gave them?

Forgotten in just 50 years? Where did they go?

And that fellow who wore loose trousers and a bush shirt

And wrote so many times: “Won’t last, won’t last.”

Then 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979,

1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985,

1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992,

1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,

2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,

2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

What? Can’t remember yet? What a strange fellow you are!

So many writers, editors, poets repeatedly

Wrote: “Won’t last, won’t last, won’t last too long

People will forget soon.” And yet you struggle

To recall their names? Then let it be!

Let Mogambo, Dr Dang and Gabbar Singh

Be their names in the history of Bengalis.

Comedy Holo Tragedyr Porgachha translated by Uttaran Dasgupta



Insomnia

Feel like writing; write

Feel hungry; eat

Feel love; do

Feel inflamed; burn

Feel addicted; drink

Feel funny; laugh

Feel like touching; touch

Feel like looking; look

Feel like cooking; cook

Feel like giving; donate

Feel like reading; read

Feel like laying; lay

Feel like pissing; piss

Feel like yawning; yawn

Feel hate; hate

Feel like shitting; shit

Feel like sneezing; sneeze

Feel hurt; cry

Feel like farting; fart

Feel like dancing; dance

Feel like singing; sing

Feel like breathing; am

No sleep

No dreams

Bengali poem Insomnia Translated by Uttaran Dasgupta 







Homeland


Can’t say my Uttarpara ancestral home isn’t my homeland,

I know unidentified bodies, their eyes plucked out, float by in the Ganga.

Can’t say my aunt’s Ahiritola isn’t my homeland,

I know abducted girls are bound and gagged in Sonagachi nearby.

Can’t say my uncle’s at Panihati isn’t my homeland,

I know who was killed, and where, in broad daylight.

Can’t say my adolescent Konnagar isn’t my homeland,

I know who was sent to cut whose throat.

Can’t say my youth’s Calcutta isn’t my homeland,

I know who threw bombs, set fire on buses, trams.

Can’t say West Bengal isn’t my homeland,

I’ve the right to be tortured to death in its lock-ups,

I’ve the right to starve and have rickets in its tea gardens,

I’ve the right to hang myself at its handloom mills,

I’ve the right to become bones buried by its party lumpen,

I’ve the right to have my mouth taped, silenced,

I’ve the right to hear the leaders sprout gibberish, abuse,

I’ve the right to a heart attack on its streets blocked by protestors,

Can’t say Bengali isn’t my homeland.

Translation of Aamar Swadesh by Uttaran Dasgupta


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