Page
1
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY (INDIA) PUBLISHED IN 2021 COPYRIGHT @ SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Page
2
PUBLISHED AND PRINTED BY: THE SILK ROAD LITERATURE SERIES, CAIRO, EGYPT
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Page
3
I draw the map of El Dorado on your two lips
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
Page
4
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
In the neighborhood of Diamond Harbour Road,there is a small restaurant. Let me say, where it is. Do you know the Blind School ? From there choose the right path, count 172 steps correctly and then you'll reach a spot, where the sky above is saffron-colored, yellow leaves are falling from deodar trees constantly, ...now , if you stand and face the southwest corner and shut your eyes, you'll find out the restaurant. It is smaller even than a Japanese Haiku,only two persons can sit there face-to-face. Red candle is in flame there all the time and you've to talk in a whispering language . A strange soup is available here, named as 'In the flow of floating dreams'. Let me recollect which items it contains : Milk of Dolphin, three drops of tears of John Keats, green lettuce, Chirping of crickets, two spoonful of cashew-wine and deep sighs of pretty bikini girls. After dinner, fortune cookie is served on the plate of aniseed. Do you know what a fortune cookie is? On the big-sized seeds of oleander flowers are written funny statements on folded papers. On the day when I visited there for the first time , I received my own allotment thus:'On your 24th birthday, you'll die after a clash with a water-grasshopper"
Page
5
On tomorrow evening , exactly at 7 0'clock, Mademoiselle, I'll wait for you there.
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
Page
6
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Contents :
Page
7
A ballad on estrangement ………………….……………………………………… 09 Mobile Phone …………………………….……………………………………………….... 10 Kiss……………………………………………….……………………………………………….. 11 An Egyptian Folktale………………….………………………………………………….. 12 Bath ……………………………………………….…………………………………………….. 13 Altamira .………………………………………….….……………………………………….. 14 Leopard ………………………………………………………..…………………… …………. 15 Words of caution ……………………….…………………………………………… ……. 16 Inhabitants of Pluto Planet……………….…………………………… ……………… 17 Cloning…………………………………………………………………………… …………….. 18 Holes of red crabs 1……………………………………………………… ……………… 19 Rhododendron Café…………………………………………………… ……………….. 21 The son zodiac sign cancer…………………………… …………………………….. 22 An expedition………………………………………………… …………………………….. 23 Extra marital affairs………….………………………… ……………………………… 24 Snake Woman……………………………………………… ……………………………… 25 Holes of red crabs………………………… ………………… …………………………. 26 Tattoo……………………………………………………………… ……………………………. 28 A caravan full of Romeos or a young girl…… ………………………………. 29 Poisonous mushroom or a prayer………………… ……………………………. 30 The stone lady…………………………………………………… ……………………….. 31 Paddy-field and a scarecrow ……………………………… ……………………….. 32 Feng shui …………………………………………………………… ……………………….33 2050 …………………………………………………………………… ………………………. 34
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
Page
8
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
A ballad on estrangement The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
You're not easily available ,for me very tough to meet you On the Nilgiri mountain, Kurinji flowers blooming in autumn, every twelve years gap, you resemble the very identical species You've bloomed once again during this season, all over the valley those suffering from leprosy, assemble there and believe that they'll be cured if they paste grinding petals of a rare species like you, on their wounds all their old maladies'll be gone for good. Following the equator, I've also come here we are belonging to the same planet, but rarely meeting each other I'll climb to search you, using the worn-out staircase through mist will lie down tiringly on the notch of a stone, you just cast off upon my body, open your petals from head to the fingers of your two legs let the storm dash out, if you put your lips on my lips
Page
9
You're the sanatorium to me, the secret panacea
Mobile Phone The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
It's only in the pocket of a shirt,as a snake Sleeps well in the cane-basket of a snake-charmer Off and on it sounds sweet whistle after retiring from sleep, And I take it in my hand to see on it's small beaming screen Someone calling me in my nickname through misty fog, As if one of my friends of childhood days Sending an aeroplane made of hand-paper… Or when I get your SMS in a crowded bus : 'Are you sure to come to-day a quarter to seven, I'll be waiting with the flashing light of a glow-worm in my hand' Cold and wet wind comes to my two dry lips As milk is deposited unseen in the branches of cactus, Trickling drop by drop throughout the day,
Page
10
The very waiting of yours in the same way gets intensified
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY KISS First I hold you gently, then the pressure comes Let the fire have a duel with petrol today My lips on your lips, it seems we are the only survivors In the world, like intoxicated snakes embracing mysterious flowers People who are very exhausted, think at this time Exactly how many calories can be consumed in just one kiss Some people think that in the month of June’s unbearable heat Watery palms burst on both sides of their tongue And one or two of them, suffering the burning of the poison, which stung Like bees on the lips, removed it with their fingers
Page
11
For the rest of their lives, they remain covering their faces with hands And opening the front white paper, writing that story every night
AN EGYPTIAN FOLK TALE The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Don't throw stones at a fellow who truely loves you those stones'll come back to you someday or other It is an Egyptian folk tale, the written version in the proverb but you did'nt obey it, rather as a first lover you ditched him, leaving him alone putting chewing gum casually in your mouth at 8 o'clock past 10 in the morning, you are crossing the quiet desert, no mirage is visible, only broken skeletons of camels lie scattered here and there sometimes after the sun will look like a ruthless hammer after pulling out from your rucksack the last bottle of soft drinks you being exhausted, will roll on the ground senseless sense when regained, you listen to the wind of the storm : It's the curse of the God of sands and deserts :
Page
12
Throughout your life you all alone will go on searching water you will earn money, enjoy solvency, but never you will get a beloved
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY Bath The soap you smear over your body,that's scented with herbal dust,thats myself,you know,my dried up lips Whenever you smear it,undressed,with none in the bathroom It's none but me you look at, from behind the mirror I clasp and grasp you stealthily with kisses on your shoulder,as if both of us standing under the shower,in the small notch of an eroded stone After this will start the festival of our caresses,as if It's a bulk of swinging white grasses on the riverfront Juicy sap of almond turned into watery paste, smeared all over the body,like the leaves of winter I'll drop and fling all dead cells from your skin with fingers 'Waves and nothing but waves you've to look on Is there any island nearby?' putting your mouth on the lobe of my ear, And clasping me whisperingly,you just want to float As the moments like bubbles fade into the time infinite You'll cover my body with foams and froths
Page
13
And will spread out my breath with yours
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY Altamira
The artist who painted the drawing-sketch of a bison in the mountain-cave of Altamira by rubbing dry colours was none by myself Yes,since then I always kept my constant watch on you, you being the youngest daughter of a game-hunter you decorate the stars of the sky with fragments of ivory from Antares, Vega to Canopus,one after the other. After that how many generations had gone by Hundreds and thousands years lay down drowsily Man's craze for religion grew intense, and Buddhist beggars walked forward in search for peace... Now after so many days we two meet each other at Park Street in a quiet coffee-shop,enclosed in glass Song was sung in husky voice in tune with guitar Tibetan wooden masks were hanging upon walls after walls As if they were the unfolded faces of ours, following one generation after another, the old mementos. Let us settle our old quarrels, Let someone bring for us steaming coffee-pots
Page
14
Let waves of time jump upon with a loud sound Let somebody gradually lay us on the walls in a freeze-shot as it remains in the figures in mountain-cave of Altamira
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
LEOPARD
Infact I'm a leopard, my craze being to hunt the prey who is unprotected and where, I search for, whose intimacy with such a friend,- that young boy, when standing before looks more sexy even than God, on chin full of beards and on that soft hairs plays quiet smooth wind, I gave her an evil omen, the girl heard that foreboding After that, leaving her companion, and having the smell of my body she has come with her face down, on her chin I unfasten my palm, not palm even, as if black hole suddenly it'll drag one into a hollow pit, just raise your eyes to look Yes, I'm that man, whom you on the night of fantasy demolished in your own way with caresses and wounds
Page
15
have you identified me? I'm acquainted with you since long time back If I'm a leopard, then you're a she-leopard in reality
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY Words of caution
Your face at daybreak came floating in dream As a thin layer floats on the crust of milk. Your smile is,as it were,a virus of bird-flu In the twinkling of an eye it's scattered From town to village,far away village... After a long stretch of time now I understand Your brain resembles a tiny computer,unknown Through which to enter I know not what's the password But I'm unyielding, not to give up so easily As there's no ticking sound in quartz clock, Time crawls along the ground accurately like bushy shrubs, I also walk by your side,silently A day'll come, I 'm sure, when we'll meet face to face
Page
16
And make a compromise
Inhabitants of Pluto Planet The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Just before the dawn,through ether that which hint I throw secretly Are you awake? Have you opened your Laptop? See how bleak and barren the field of rape seed is Can you recognise me? I got acquainted with you at the end of winter last year, Where,very near to the moon,at the station light merges in the black hole Once again winter comes,sticky wool in the melody of the lonely youth's flute like the inhabitants of the Pluto planet during each noon-time I might have sent e-mail Have you got it intact ? Are you more lonely? As if confined in a solitary fort, being puzzled in the mage of rubic-cube are you in search for your childhood days,long lost? Then listen to my whistle, while floating on the airy canoe I am still waiting for you The African fly through website pricks its sting sharply
Page
17
These very river,soil,sun and galaxy give me their translated versions you know it well, my poems are the wings of ducks on the sand,only spread out your hands
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Cloning Robots are sitting in a row beside the table On the screen of internet there's going correct counting : Only thirteen maidens are still living all over the world With that data, from the eyes of robots, evaporate moist That sexual excitement caused by a woman partnerWithout whom intercourse flops, not even caress brings joy With these worries they go to the research lab
Page
18
Now the experiment starts, woman will be cloned
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Holes of Red Crabs 1 1. Boy Friend Your boyfriend is exactly a lively leopard He entered into a tea garden at foot-hills From where you abducted him outright And now both of you live together In the same apartment All right But not with a rifle You just keep a strip of contraceptive
2. One recollecting former birth
Page
19
My girlfriend to me like An unsealed new soap That emits the smell of lemon While taking bath in wash room We both make known to each other Our bruised marks Only froth is cleansed We remember only our previous b
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
3. Digging I’m entering into your body To start with the hole of your mouth, Going down through your oesophagus Shall I further fall down Some where extremely deep? Through your heart, stomach, intestine Spleen and pancreas I’m digging and digging With a pickaxe and crowbar
Page
20
-Where are you?
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
RHODODENDRON CAFE
A deserted hilly pit, common people say it’s a suicide point Frozen clouds float layers after layers, beside There is a cafe, not famous, made out of Raw woods that emit vapours Here towards afternoon, there’ll be our Unexpected chance-meeting Winter sunshine is spread all over, coloured like dettol Both of us will be taken by surprise : There are so many scratchy wrinkles on both of our faces There’ll be served local wine in bamboo containers, The husks of yeast and apple causing intoxication Will gradually ascend upward the head Like the poison of snake On every table go on planchettes , Planchettes of dear poets dead long ago They are brought down silently by hooking their souls with a pole, Night will knock on the lobes of the ear, and here only
Page
21
Our chat will go on face to face in the rest of the life
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The son of zodiac sign cancer I wander in the forests from my childhood days, the world of trees in my two eyes I bring and paste medicinal herbs, and am busy with these Till now I’ve never listened to the angry caution of an evil spirit I know not any magic or jugglery, rather think where to get genuine medicine plant? When you will be cured from all ailments, How will you get relief? After getting proper answer, I’ll go to bed And switch off my flaming lantern Just open your eyes, look silence and listen to night Who is giving hypnotic night call, The rest of outside is a still photo
Page
22
Leaving me behind where will you escape? I hold you in a tight grasp In terms of astrology, I am the son of cancer My two hands are just like crab
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
An expedition I draw the map of El Dorado on your two lips Catkin flowers bloom here and there The beacons of dodo birds from fossil rocks Will escort me at every step, I know it certain From the prediction of tribal folks, even the baby angel who peeps Goes back to where, he used to lie down Yes,it’s the right time, listen to me, in the drops of drizzling rain Mushrooms grow up during night Think in advance what things you’ve to carryDry date-palms and leaves falling from trees Where cultivation of deers will start, by rummaging the ashes I write down my nickname on your lower abdomen The nails of witches are scorched in the burning heat of fire Say, what you desire to say,look near by The houses of aborigines,paddy-fields, cock-fights -’you only, I long for you’ Just wait for a while, the sun is about to set,it’s dusk now Rhododendron are trembling
Page
23
Keep eyes on my eyes, I put my teeth on your breast-walnuts The Totem god starts laughing
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Extra marital affairs As you beacon, it causes me to dance my fingers with eyebrow raised The hints of dumb are blended towards the ears of deaf The seeds of sun plant, if broken and grasped into the two eyes How to remove gum? Thinking thus I walk around the pavement 2. Just come forward once,and then go back taking an U-turn, You’re as timid as a squirrel, also shy by nature Is marriage to you as fragile as bone-china cup? Will it crumble down into pieces against a light push? 3. I’ve swallowed, but couldn’t digest you properly Stuck only like a chewing gum in my tongue Love and hatred lie down under the same blanket As if they are two little sister, two conjoined Siamese twins
Page
24
4. You’re as it were a spider, never bite, only lick With that strong poison enter into deepest part of my skin If not treated, gangrene is unavoidable, with this fear at midnight I nibble from the injuries the living bladder by scratching with my nails
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Snake Woman
I was a beloved one of a venomous snake-woman I couldn’t make out her real nature before At the end of shady autumn in the forest -grass She expanded her hood so violently beside a beaming fountain In the clear moonlight,also in the tune with rhythmic intercourseThat unrestrained reeling dance It seemed to my mind the very delusion of a celestial nymph There was a flash of lightning on the meadow, in the bed made of leaves We are as if two images of loving pair, on the point of Kissing on her lips, I tried to withdraw myself Her lolling tongue divided,during that night of our mating I was simply astonished to find some striped fibers on her abdomen Seeing me totally senseless, she had gone to hibernation Only its slough remains left now And on both sides of my knee-joint There is still the mark of its biting
Page
25
The hidden mark of her poison fangs
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Holes of red crabs 2 1. Virus After I kiss you there’s only Vast expanse of sands, no catkin flowers, The cloud of autumn do not stoop, The lips grow more dry As if virus in lakhs Have destroyed my hard disc And I remain feeling less like a metallic robot
2. Estrangement
Page
26
Estrangement like a rare species of wine Lift the glass upto the sky I’m now dead drunk, Bygone days and their memories come back Your face now appears to be Verily like a mayfly insect That’s born on each evening Dies as usual in late night
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
3. Tajpur, the seaside You who at the end of the week On the sea-side of Tajpur Call me by winking and search for Salty water in the holes of red crabWith you I fall in love As it were I deposit money in chit-fund My heart which I deposited Will never get back at all
4. Spa
Page
27
I lie down in the bathtub in Spa chamber and recollect That you’re not mine, Am I to repent for that to-day? I fold my eyes and brood, My mind feels relaxed Just like a buffalo plunging Into a summer pond upto the neck
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Tattoo Near your back there’s a tattoo Of a pair of sun-flowers From midnight onwards Their petals fire up daily,
Page
28
As if at 4 0’ clock in dawn Van Gogh in his invisible fingers Is sprinkling blood with a thick brush On the two lips of sun
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
A caravan full of Romeos or a young girl
Where are they now- those Romeos while walking along the road or thronging on the caravan, used to follow you all the time? You're not Cleopatra, nor will you finish your bath by the very touch of an ass's milk That guy who rubbed out your feet with tearsthe hidden sighs of so many like thiscloudy estrangement and afflicted glance broken and splintered pieces of rib-bones... you've decorated all these in your showcase like trophies. Only to that guy who is a skilled hunter you do make yourself a prey to him? He's more cunning, knows more tricks and traps. He has perforated your heart, and after that he proudly hangs it on the wall of his drawing-room with a nail, it's just like the custom followed by the race like the Naga tribes in their respective rooms... You only, all alone, just like a phantom will frantically search for your lost beloved
Page
29
in the city's bye-lanes and smoky dust
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Poisonous mushrooms or a prayer
Eating poisonous mushrooms As red allergies appear all over the body You are just like that Constantly bite me by your teeth and make me crazy When blood oozes from my wound Let the alphabets of the Bengali tongue come down Don’t stop,strike with fangs Let the moon stay awake,like your sharp poisonous teeth If anyone gets everything No more poems come sitting in that heavenly bliss I don’t want that happiness
Page
30
You give more stings, bring eternal hell
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The stone lady
Cool white porcelain bowl, dripping with it Lover’s tears have been secretly stored for a month, The girl who relishes slowly Delicious sweet corn soup There is nothing to worry about, she is my girlfriend… As if insensitive Anyone who has become a stone lady There was sometime a melody like that of a nightingale, But today Filling the pitcher with her boyfriend’s blood Play in spring festival
Page
31
Lover’s unbuttoned bone is her favourite drumstick
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Paddy-field and a scarecrow
As a hymn is complex written in Hebrew alphabets So you’re, but more difficult to understand, More unknown your whereabouts Days come and go, shadow spreads over the dykeIn collective prayers farmers look for Clouds and crops in their fists and Their doleful lamentations for raindrops In suffocating summer-heat In the same way in sick paddy-field I stretch my two hands
Page
32
You’ll be coming…and I stand and wait just like a scarecrow
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Feng Shui
Let us listen to what the Feng Shui experts advise the middle-aged couple suffering from depression : 1. Just place three crystal balls at the north-east corner of the room, they may tone up the warmth of relationship 2. The dragon overthere,- for its curvy tail and shoulder just buy it to home, on the bed of sleeping chamber It'll tease the body with a lightning flash at dead of night 3. Then after a long stretch of time, the fairy tale begins Purchase for this a golden ship with sails, Which, like a dolphin, will carry you on it's back During intercourse-to a grassy green island 4. Do you think what to carry with you? Just touch upon the laughing smile of Buddha If all these fail, then in a winter afternoon, on opening the west window,
Page
33
let the aged couple look at the sunset only
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
2050 I go on thinking, how will be the world of 2050, Is it that we'll buy capsules for visualizing dreams? Will you bring the twittering of parrots in your disc in wake, would I see all weapons are rusted? At cross roads there are semen banks, known males impotent At that time your brother’s gone with his friends To enjoy a day-off on Saturday to other planet on a solar region And in melancholy mood, with a slight pressure on the mouse, You perhaps search for new writings, Bengali poems dot com All on a sudden ends the Cyber Age, Plasma starts The primitive world, as it were, comes back rupturing the rocky stone, Through the splashing water emerge the unknown mammoths and reptiles The shrubs dying because of explosion of ultraviolet How the blind revenge from the mouth of a volcano Causes to float the seed-paddy, pregnant, foetal?….. Do you then, after finding my decomposed body Send the news to my home through telegram code?-
Page
34
‘Even my boyfriend is like a Robot whose battery is exhausted’
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
Shaswata Gangopadhyay
Page
35
Shaswata Gangopadhyay (India) : One of the Prominent face of Contemporary Bengali Poetry ,who started writing in Mid 90s. Born and brought up at Kolkata, Shaswata has profound interest in travelling,adventure and classical music. Shaswata writes in Bengali, the 4th largest language of the earth and as per UNESCO, it is the sweetest language. His poems have been published in all major journals of Bengali literature. He has participated in different virtual poetry festivals of Europe and Both North and Latin America. His poems are continously Publised in all six continents through translations in different languages. His book of Poems : Inhabitant of Pluto Planet (2001) Offspring of Monster (2009), Holes of Red Crabs(2015),Rhododendron Cafe (2021) and Selected Love Poems (2021). Recently His Poems had been exhibited in a Poetry Festival in Picollo Museum,Italythe only Poetry Museum of the world. Translations of his Poems have been published in various journals and anthologies of Europe,America, Asia, Africa and Latin America and Australia. Recently He has been Recognised as ‘International Poet’ by well reputed ‘The POET’ Magazine of London. Very recently he has participated World Poetry Festival in Argentina and Cuba and also in the ‘Silk Road Poetry Festival’ of China. He has also been invited to read his poems in both UK and USA Book Fair, organised virtually this year.
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
Page
36
SELECTED LOVE POEMS BY SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY
The Silk Road Literature Series 2021
