Poetryzine magazine presents the selected poems by the Bengali poet Shaswata Gangopadhyay
Knife
I don't compose poems, I only manufacture knives
If you insult me, I place that insult into the pocket of my trousers
I come back, my grit grows stronger, I make the edges of knives sharper
'What do you do? simply writing poems? then you spit, and dive into it'
Let the people laugh at, meanwhile I whet my alphabets
Which I'll throw one day, that'll pierce the throat with severe cut
The Friend
'A man is all alone when, instead of a bridge
He constructs a hard wall around both of his sides';
Wrote a Greek philosopher in his diary
Myself also etched a long tattoo on the palms of my hands
The name of my dear friend, his latest phone number.
In the scorching heat of noon, when my tongue gets dry
After walking a long way on the pitched road
With my slipper-straps torn,
I enter a booth and pick up the receiver to make him a call
Oh, as if I am slaking my thirst with a green coconut,
in one sip on my straw-lips
Epitaph
Here where he lies down, all the irons and carbons
of his body will get mixed up with soil,
only his lips will look at the rainless sky above,
and his poems as secret pamphlets
will only stay behind like the feathers in waiting for days together-
in the eye-balls of a very recent reader
running along the ridge of earth, if it so happens
they light up the glow of a lantern
Translated by Rajdeep Mukherjee
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