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Best Poems Written by Debasish Datta

Below are the all-time best Debasish Datta poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Raatri - Night

At the confluence stands the sage
Directing traffic of divine centuries,
Gluons, microns, universes and the laughter bird

The laughter bird is afloat, his wings
Drip cold and soothing fractals
Morphed out of innocent play
And the desire for play
Small, large, star shaped, flower petalled fractals
Keep falling like snowflakes through my lazy evening

Portals that were wide open throughout the long
		And dazzling day
And played welcome to ten trillion suns
Detaching each from other at lightning speed
From mother broth, carrying heat and
Light, riding the swift shuttle of invisibility
To arrive at my portals, and alight
Joining other streaming suns throughout 
		My long long day

Vespers, now
Now the old doorkeeper
Is pulling the portals shut, and Night
The Vedic Night, the Night for whom the
Hymns of succour and supplication are sung
To protect us from fierce tigers, and the
Country wolf, succour for me and mine
And those who dwell in ancient hamlets, those
That stand guard on moonlit fields in winter,
Birds with beaks dipping in warm and furry feather high up on the trees of night,
And the shadowy corners of our minds, also
The deep deep well inside where innocent
And sultry Semite lasses draw water for Job,
Or Jacob, or Jesus, or simply me

There, for that, but for that,
We were the flying caravan of white on blue
Flying, flying, flying endlessly
Lest we were caught by soft and welcome hands
Of the bubbling laughter of Eternity.

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For Sweethearts Linda and Carol

There was a black colt from Bastille
Who wooed a fair filly at Lille
She asked, “Do you know ?”
He replied, “So so”
So she had to lead him through the drill

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You, Lass

You, unforgettable lass
Wined and dined by champion stuff
Chose me singlehandedly
Disdaining emblem, lance and ruff

I turned out to be minstrel though
Luckless wayward troubadour
Flitting past from post to post
Stringing harps and often poor

Lamented  bald and ribald all,
‘That epitome of womankind
Should languish in the arms of such
Fool, who’s always left behind’

Stunned, however, I remain
When each morning brings to me
Still today at sixty plus
Like morning dew your loving glee

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At the Souk

My heart is out for you
At the souk
 
My heart sits on the steps
Falling from sand to sea
Crying for you
At the souk

My heart whirls like a dervish
Around straggling lasses
Wending their way
To desert wells
Looking for you
At the souk

My heart flying high
With vultures circles the burnt siena sun
Sifting with dismal slit eyes
Mistral sands
Raging way down below
Leaping for you
At the souk

My heart
Whining to sleek rich women
Tries to sell them cheap pearl strings
Choking on you
At the souk

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O, My, My

One gnashing of teeth
makes a star fall billions of miles away
A tiny turn in a flower makes angels turn

The flutter of a strange butterfly
Is in my mouth my heart my hands my feet
As the universe
In and around me cry

Large raindrops fall
Busy making the circuit
from Precambrian days
Puddle to pool to river to sea
The humming beauty bivouacing inside me -
Sea to ocean to snorkelling whales,
fun, vapour, cloud and sky
Trysting with the cosmic fall
O, my, my !

Charged and seeded, full of child
Weeping, heavy with labour, wild
fat and veined, in ecstasy
blue belly filled
with water, corn, life, dreams distilled
From tubs of tangerine
In earnestness and sin

The angel and the butterfly
Over my head this evening flew
Lifting up the crimson sky
O, my, my !

Details | Debasish Datta Poem

Gypsy Queen

A gypsy queen is dancing
In Aminhotep’s land
Her full blown skirt billows out in the wind
Her tambourine beats time
Held in a strong, slender hand

Sand grains churned by dancing feet
Lie in ecstasy
Unfelt since Rameses had marched
and an ultramarine
Peacock that flew in from Blue River
had settled on his crown
To spread its plumes and shrill into his ear
Unknown names of unseen lands and seas
Of kings to come and start new dynasties
And vanish across a few millennium days

The sheer blue gauze of a deep delinquent haze
Protects the sleeping Pharaoh in his tomb
Dancing daughter to deeply buried kings
Carries a fairytale inside her womb

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At the Height of Her Beauty

She’s at the height of her beauty now
At sixty, I am sixtyfour
I breathe her silent whispering
We’ve drawn the curtains, shut the door

To dream our dreams, 
He his she hers
And gift each other each other’s lot
Wrapped in kisses, tied in tears

The wave that wells up in my eyes
She sees and rushing meets head on
The moment is the ocean of time
We leave the sands, float gently on

She cups my mouth with tiny hands
She steps on me with tiny feet
She loves me with her lovely eyes
And our drowning is so sweet

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Presaging

The morning on Mars back to the moon,
lunch at high noon,  a short nap
Tea on this planet with a celestial map
That will be your schedule soon

This year the vacation’s planned for Andromeda
It’s only a two day drive, after all
You’re not badly off and have a stellar jeep
A recent make, albeit somewhat small
No matter though for your latest family is from Saturn
Where they come quite slim, and tall

Remember to visit the exclusive colony there
of sunbathing sloths
Who own parasite superseers
Shooting light vectors out of eyes
that transfix passing stars
In order gently to wipe their galactic tears

All that is for November
Now it’s only June and months of work
Designing an antimatter belt infinitely self expanding
To girdle an eighth of the universe
The order was terse : The plans must be ready
by September full stop
You know the Chinaman, the inscrutable cop
Deputising, for whom? Whomsoever
Never say sorry, never say no, never ever

It’s late, very late, by candlelight . I yawn .
Must finish this letter and sleep, before it’s dawn

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Listening To Joan Baez

I sat with rum and Joan Baez the other day
Writing up three poems in Bombay
One short  another crooked
Yet not quite a disaster
The other long and sad
Not very bad but still not much more
Than a chinchilla whore
In her teens, plump, with baby fat
Still around her cheekbones, shoulders, waistflesh

Trellised eaves
A tooting car on Cadell Road
Dusk falling, friends out on a binge,
I alone in the darkening flat
Joan Baez on my knee her voice from the cassette recorder
Blurring the border between voice and flesh
And letting them enmesh
Wafting out over lonely streets
Climbing the Pali Hills
Sidling in stealth by private yew hedges
To caress like silk the legs of a party
Falling to pieces at only six-thirty

Prosaic, proselytizing like Diogenes in the bin
Beard straggling all over an obdurate chin

Breathe in the voice let the pictures go by
Looking for a conjuror in the sky
And confused, return
Dreams back to ashes, ashes to the urn
Quiet in the knowledge that ashes don’t burn.

They say  some  poetry
Is coming out of me
Juice wrung out by iron teeth
From the tender heart  of a slender tree.

Details | Debasish Datta Poem

Wings

They all presage for me 
Signal calamity -
Deep etched lines that fall from Saturn’s mount,
Crabbed  islands on wavering lines of fate,
A mole on the southwest corner of the palm,
I stay calm

For I
Have seen the rising sun lave snowy peaks,
Seen ditchwater drowning dreaded kings,
Hunted with the hoary hounds of hell,
And through these all have seen my poems take wings