Saturday, May 3, 2008

Poems

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
Repeat Uhuru
Hood-covered face, hands tied
at the back. On the alter plank
breeze frozen in bitter hangman’s odour
who computes 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 bowl
wherein birds and butchers repeat their fall
I revive my rise
The rising is singular. Non other than the monster of words
whose feet adore the ruined universe
I don’t face the gallows every time to keep alive
a dynasty of those who are spawned for death.
(Translation of ‘Aarekbar Uhuru’) 1986
Humanology
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 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 stallion.
(Translation of ‘Monuhyatantra’) 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 wathched 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 equichemical blood
streams through my 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 sweatbeads
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 )

Introduction of Malay RoyChoudhury

Introduction

Better known as Malay, Malay RoyChoudhury was born in 1939 in the chaotic township of Patna. He did his post graduation in 1960 , gave up Ph.D. research half way through for poetry,dissent and freedom,and moved to Kolkata to take up the leadership of the famous “Hungryalist” literary movement. The impact provoked powerful hostilities.

He lost his job for writing poems,earned the wrath of his friends and relatives, and was perpetually scandalized by a section of the media, Life became miserable and he stopped writing around 1967. With his mother’s death in 1983 he started writing again and emerged as a major Bengali poet of the Indian sub-continent and, as a backlash of the sixties decade of incendiary iconoclasm, became a legend. He has written more than forty books, including novels, drama, social polemics, translations of Allen Ginsberg, Federico Garcia Lorca, Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars, Paul Gaugin, William Blake, Dharmavir Bharati,and others. Academic researchers have done their M.Phil, and Ph.D. on his works, specially poetry. Several little magazines have published special issues on Malay. The poems here are from his book “Selected Poems” published in 1989. Bengali being a language of sophisticated nuances, the poems that follow are those that lent themselves to presentable versions and may not, therefore, be treated as the best.