Poems
My Mother
Masud Khan(Translated by Fakrul Alam) In the dust-smeared evening
Far away, almost at the margins of the horizon,
The one who is resting all by herself
In a bed laid out under the open sky
Is my mother.
Her bed smells of grass and the antiseptic Dettol.
A tube in her nose supplies her with oxygen,
A saline bottle is attached to her arm,
And she is tied to a catheter too—
It is as if she is getting entangled inextricably
In a jungle of plastic and polythene reeds. A smoky surreal unreal canopy encircles her bed. Seemingly after ages, dusk descends on the world,
Birds and insects form a chorus,
Wailing throatily obscure and dissonant tunes
In amateurish over-excited zeal,
Seeking refuge timorously in hedges and bushes,
At the margin of the horizon,
In the shadow of primeval motherhood.
Masud Khan is a poet and translator living in Toronto. Fakrul Alam is professor of English at Dhaka University.
Monday
Buddhadev Dasgupta(Translated by Salim Ahmed) Jadhunath is lying beside Damini
From Damini's breast
from her navel
from her pubis
an astonishing darkness comes
and covers Jadunath's body and
Covers
Jadunath's shame, his loss
his amounting to nothing at all,
his fatigue, Jadunath's week-long
stored-up rage. Night lengthens and
humiliation, tiredness, anger
calm down to fly away to the stars—
as from inside the bed climbs down
after a thousand years
creakily stealthily Sunday! In the morning from the bazaar bag
peeps out spinach, peeps out
katla fish wrap, peeps out
Jadunath's childhood days.
Sitting on Damini's breast
Jadunath scribbles A B C D.
The night grows old
from the stars float down
humiliation, pain and anger
to lay a hand on Jadu's forehead. On Monday Jadunath from a bamboo beam
hangs down like a bat.
Buddhadev Dasgupta is a noted Kolkata poet. Salim Ahmed is a schoolteacher and translator.
What I'd Like To Be
F Mowla What I'd like to be is aRich bitch
The 500-watt daughter
Of an ex-minister
Duck-waddling into a room
Wailing "Oh, the corruption!" What I'd like to be is a
Factory-wallah
Snug in my SUV
Talking about fair wages
On talk-show TV. What I'd like to be is a
First-born
Of a political family
And handed the keys
To the state treasury. What I'd like to be is a
Bank defaulter
Shimmering in a silk kurta
Sending my boys to USA
On my own 'ha-ha wink wink' money. Then I'd have it easy
I'd sail on the river of life
I'd smoke a hukkah
Sing a tuneful song
Dance in my happy hell
Wave to the people
Sa re ga maaaa...
F Mowla is a graduate student in New York.
Let It Rain
Badray Munir(translated by Khademul Islam) Let it rain all night long – all day and all night. Who wants the sun's face – insolent, irreverent?
These insane birds yearning for light,
Employees of sunshine – who are they? Let it rain all night long – all day and all night. Huge mounds of waste, ill-bred faces
Have piled up high in my mind;
The copper pot scarred with green gashes –
Let the rain scrub it clean!
Let the rain wash Time's bedcover clean. Let it rain all night long – all day and all night. Who wants sunlight's colour, the proclamation of hues?
Why the sun, what's this insistence
That pierces Night's stubborn re-birth?
Let it be the rainy months of Ashar, Srabon;
Till the end the rain's numbing fall –
The rain's willing downpour
Let it tumble-upend rinse out all bluster. Let it rain all day and all night
Let it rain whole life long.
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