TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY OWSHNIK GHOSH

Image Used For Representation

CRISS-CROSS

Deadly criss-cross marks of red ink
over the black ink.
The matter is insignificant.
Really insignificant,
Unless you remember
a black boy
stained with blood
sleeping his last sleep
in the paddy field.

POEM OF THIS CENTURY

O you sweet and beautiful people
of the twenty first century
you may forget
our story. We were
lean and selfish
we were violent and melancholic.
We lived
when nuclear ashes
floated across the blue sky-
when cities waited
to break down.

BLUE STARRY NIGHT

Only a candle extinguished with a sigh – and at the window, the clear, blue starry night. The roads will empty further at night. A couple of rickshaws will pass by ringing their bells; and the wind from the sleeping mountains will come down and dominate this city. -Now I recall everything. I had written to you, ‘I can’t live further!’ Those writings have ended since a long time. Our Kolkata has moved far away from us, I’ve not kept any news of her. Ah, I’ve roamed around alone in the city for many days. I’ve woken up with the dreams at many dusks … I got lost, in a silent, bitter depression… I no longer wait for any letters. I’m living on the doctor’s mercy and writing to you at this moment with a smiling face- memories have created a vacuum within me more and poverty, has hurt me repeatedly.

IN THIRTY-TWO YEARS

I often see you in unknown lands
standing on a silent terrace.

All conversations

have ended.

No words left – no dreams –

Only some days and nights are left behind.

STILL LIFE

A tree and
a string bed under its shade

is our third world.

Also, read Somnium by Giuliana Pala, translated from the Italian by Patrick Williamson, and published in the Antonym:

Somnium— Giuliana Pala

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