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Bangladesher Kobita
Anthology of Contemporary Poems of Bangladesh
Volume One : The Twentieth Century

Table of Contents

Bangladesher Kobita – What Is I
Poems 31-356
ABUL HUSSAIN 31
ABU BAKAR SIDDIQUE 34
AL MAHMUD 37
Poet’s exercise book is flying away
In the Darkness that hide tears
MOHAMMAD RAFIQUZZAMAN 40
Doubtful Reflection
Genealogy
Commercial
MANIRUZZAMAN 43
RAFIQUE AZAD 46
SHAHID QUADRI 49
HELAL HAFIZ 52
HAYAT SAIF 55
ASAD CHOWDHURY 58
AL MUJAHIDI 61
SYED SHAMSUL HAQUE 64
MAHADEV SAHA 67
NIRMALENDU GOON 70
MUNIR SIRAJ 73
MATIN BAIRAGI 77
SIDDIQUE MAHMUDUR RAHMAN 80
MAKID HAIDER 84
RAFIQUE NAWSHAD 87
HABIBULLAH SIRAJI 90
KHURSHID ANOWAR 93
ZAHANARA BARI 96
MAYEEN CHOWDHURY 97
MUHAMMAD NURUL HUDA 100
KAZI ROSY 103
ABID ANOWAR 105
ASIM SAHA 108
ZAHIDUL HAQUE 111
MAYUKH CHOWDHURY 112
SYED HAIDER 114
KHONDAKER ASHRAF HUSSAIN 117
RABINDRA GOPE 119
DAUD HAIDER 122
NASIR AHMED 128
SHIHAB SARKAR 131
MORSHED SHAFIUL HASAN 133
NITAI SEN 140
HASAN HAFIZ 144
MOSHARRAF HOSSAIN BHUYAN 147
SHAHABUDDIN NAGARI 150
DILARA HAFIZ 153
IQBAL AZIZ 156
JAHANGIR FIROZ 159
ZAHID HAIDER 161
GOLAM KIBRIA PINU 167
SARKER MAHBUB 170
MUMAMMAD SAMAD 173
FARID AHMED DULAL 176
KHALID AHSAN 177
KAMAL CHOWDHURY 180
ASAD MANNAN 182
MAHMUD KAMAL 185
A Stoppage
SAIFULLAH MAHMUD DULAL 188
WALI KIRON 193
ASHRAFUL MOSADDEQ 196
JHARNA RAHMAN 198
PARITOSH HALDAR 200
MINAR MONSUR 203
MASUD KHAN 205
HAFIZ RASHID KHAN 208
SARKAR MASUD 211
KAMRUL HASSAN 218
BILU KABIR 221
PULAK HASSAN 224
REZAUDDIN STALIN 227
JEWEL MAZHAR 230
TARIK SUJAT 232
SHIHAB SHAHRIAR 235
ABU SYEED OBAIDULLAH 238
KAMRUL BAHAR ARIF 241
TAPOSH GAYEN 244
FARIDUZZAMAN 246
RAZU ALAUDDIN 247
PULIN RAY 249
SARKAR AMIN 252
SHIMUL MAHMUD 255
HASANAl ABDULLAH 257
SAZZAD QUADIR 261
MATIN RAIHAN 264
TUSHAR GAYEN 267
KAKOLI MUKHERJEE 271
SHAHNAZ MUNNI 277
SHELLY NAZ 280
MURSHIDA AHMED 282
KHALIL MAZID 285
Water Banhur
Lonely Assemblage
MANIK BOIRAGI 287
Cultivable Land
God’s Despotism
BINOY BARMAN 289
Word-Nectar
Night thief
MUJIB EROM 291
Labour Room
Enchantment
Evil Eyes
OBAED AKASH 294
A bunch of Rainy Days on my shoulder
Relation
TANIA HOSSAIN 296
I would not tell you to love me
Do you know, what is love?
Question
ROKON ZAHUR 299
Love Drops down
Expectation
In the Baishakh Evening
KHAN NURUZZAMAN 302
Theory of Kite
Theory of Voyage
KALAM AZAD 303
Bullet-pierced Map
SAFURA KHATUN 304
I’ll Wait a Thousand Years
Someday We Two Will
Asharh Damsel
ZUNNU REIN 307
When I’m in my Solitude
To Abul Hasan’s Loneliness
Someday, I’ll have fever
ANJUMAN ROSY 310
Sun Ray
In the Season of Fever
ARABINDO CHAKRABARTY 312
Paraphrase of Ocean
Death delight
A salute of yellow sari
BIREN MUKHERJEE 315
One day Proximity to Death
Proximity to River
Your face fly with unruly moonlight
CHARU HAQUE 318
Progress
Day of Blooming Jui Flower
Nobody Like You

DUPUR MITRA 321
A few Poems
FERDOUS NAHAR 324
The keys of Cage
The opening and closing of a poem
Enjoyment
HENRY SWAPAN 327
Shamsur Rahaman: In a Little Mag.
The rest of flying Birds
In the Nightly Boat
MANIK MOHAMMAD RAZZAK 314
Black Blood
Epic of Gypsy
The more you burn
NASIM ZAHAN NINA 333
Mummy of Flower in the Golden Coffin
RAHMAN HENRY 334
In Some Full Moon of Dole
At Ashulia Road
The Day of Khandab-dahan
RANJANA BISWAS 337
One night of Desire
Mantra does not work now
I see my own corpse in dream
SHAMIM HUSSAIN 340
A Different Perspective
The Emptiness
Dance
SIPRA GOSWAMI 343
Words and Poems
To You
Relation
SIRAJUDDAULAH BAHAR 346
From this side of the barbed wire
Roumari 1991
SUBRATA AUGUSTINE GOMES 348
Lips
Photo on the drinking glass
Sight

TUSHAR PRASUN 351
Missing apart
Masters
AYSA JHARNA 353
Nature
Enchanted Crowd
Golden Bird
AKHTARUN NAHAR ALO 356
The Windows
I Love You
FORKAN BEGUM 358
If I don’t meet you my friend
MALEKA FERDAUS 359
My World
Window
SHAHIDUL HAQUE SWAPAN 360
The Night
Alphabetical Index of the Poets 361

Bangladesher Kobita
An Anthology of Contemporary Poems of Bangladesh:
The Twentieth Century

Bangladesher Kobita – What Is It?
Bangla literature is one of the most ancient literatures of the world. Kobita or Kavya is the most ancient form of Bangla literature. Bangla kavya or Bangla kobita emerged from mystic genre of Bangalee people. Bangalees are predominantly poetic in nature. They hum at daytime under scorching Sun, when they work in the field sow seeds in the ploughed fields, they hum in the cool evening, while striking hammers on the red hot iron to make sickle or plow, they hum when they trim hairs sitting under the age-old banyan tree or make pottery before the spinning wheels.
The Bangalees hum in Summer and Winter, in Spring and Autumn, in Rainy Season and also in Late-Autumn. The melodies of the naiyas (boatmen) or garials (the cart driver) are heart-rendering. There are thousands of songs young belles used to hum for their beloved, sometimes they are cute and pleasant, sometimes they are painful.
From young to the old, poems and songs are ever-pervading among all classes of people. The nature of Bangla or Bengal, as the British called it, divided into six seasons, Grismwa, covering Baishakh and Jaishtha is the scorching Summer, Barsha, covering Asharh and Shravan is the torrential Rain, Sarath, covering Bhadra and Aswin is the mellow early-Autumn, Hemanta, covering Kartik and Agrahayan is the mellower late Autumn and early Winter, Sheet, covering Powsh and Magh is the congenial chilling Winter and lastly, but not the least Basanta, covering, Falgun and Chaitra is the tuneful Spring. All the twelve months and six seasons have distinctive characteristics, so they have their different poems, music and songs.
The most characteristic feature of the Bengali landscape is its vast river system, most probably the largest delta, which illustrates the Bengali people and their literature. Among the main rivers, the Padma (the Ganges), the Jamuna and the Surma are the three most important and these are referred to in many literary compositions. Bengal was famous in ancient times for its rivers. River and sea voyages are portrayed in Bengali folklore and literature. Bangladesh is also distinguished by a unique coming together of many religions, languages, and races.
One of the earliest historical references to be found to date is the mention of a land named Gangaridi by the Greeks around 100 BC. The word comes from Gangahrid (Ganga + hrid = heart; Land that has Ganges in its heart) and believed to be referring to an area in the South-Western Bengal.
The early history of Burma and Thailand tells us that before the arrival of Tibeto-Chinese tribes, these countries were inhabited by Mon-Khmer people. Dravidians migrated here and became the ruling race. Later, when non-Aryan Indians assimilated the Brahmnic culture, they introduced the Sanskrit language and traditions.
Lying at the crossroads of South-East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, Bengal had attracted people from the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent: Central Asia, China, Arabia and Europe, as well as from rest of India.
Buddhism, the first known systematic religion flourished in Bengal, almost with the advent of Buddhism in 2500 BC. Before that, polytheism was practiced with many multiplicities with diversified deities and innumerable methods of worships.
The Bengali Buddhist mystics, one of the most difficult and mystic religion, known as the shahajia (generality) mystic school of Buddhism, used poetry as a vehicle for teaching. Without using complicated Sanskrit scripture, the mystic poets used the mother tongue of the common people to convey serious religious philosophies. These poems are an integral part of the cultural and religious heritage of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.
Under the Sena dynasty (1000 A.D.), the rulers consolidated polytheistic Hindu religion into a systematic procedure. Under their rule, Bangla language emerged as a distinct and important language in Northern India, and Hinduism began to displace older Buddhism.
The Turkic invasion in Bengal came in the early 13th century. The invaders defeated the Sena king Laxmansena at his capital, Nabadwip in 1203 (1204?). Far before the Muslim invaders, the Muslim saints from Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, Arabian Peninsula and from as far as Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, used to come to Bengal preaching Islam. All these countries practiced Islam in much softer way and with the influence from the saints of these countries, the Sufism (Sufi= temperate), another form of mystic culture, were introduced in Bengal, which interestingly fitted well with already practiced the mystic culture of Buddhism.
According to the Tibetan book, Pag Sham Jon Zang of the 11th century, Bengal occupied a revered place in the field of art. Tibetan opera or old drama combines singing and dancing reminds one of the Carya Nryta (Ph©v b„Z¨ = Carya dance) and Carya singing. It is still found in rural areas of Nepal and Bhutan today. Dance movements in Tibetan opera, found in the Carya Nrytas and some movements, such as bowing with the hands clasped, scriptures, and the use of metaphors in the Caryas, correspond with lyrics and melodies.
The earliest literary compositions in Bangla language are the forty-seven songs, called Caryapadas or Caryagiti, were composed by siddhas of the Shahajia Sect, an offshoot of Tantrika Mahayana Buddhism. It originated during 7th century. These songs were preserved in a palm-leaf manuscript in the Royal Nepalese Archive, which was discovered in 1907.
The subject matter of the Caryapada is highly mystic, centering round the esoteric doctrines and yoga of the Shahajias; the Sanskrit commentary does not make now sung and danced to. A number of poems in old Bengali have been translated into Tibetan and have been included in the Bstan-Hgyur (Tan-Jur), the Bengali originals having been lost. The metres of the Carya poems are known as matra-vritta. This discovery brought to light the oldest specimen not only of Bengali poetry but also of Indo-Aryan literature.
These poem-songs in old Bengali, designed to be sung with a particular temper, constitute an integral part of the heritage of Bangladesh and the basis of a long established tradition of poetry, which has survived to the present day. These verses by Buddhist mystic poets are not only beautifully written and add greatly to Bengali literary traditions, but they also constitute an invaluable source for the study of Bengali society and the Buddhist religion between the 7th and 12th centuries.
They give us a vivid account of the life and occupations of the common people, their work, events of birth, marriage and death, religious activities, dress and ornaments, food and utensils, and music and musical instruments of that time. There is also a beautiful description of the riverine and green eastern part of Bengal, which is Bangladesh today. The poems describe rivers, canals, ponds, muddy shores, various types of boats and their different parts, ferrying and rowing; all these were used as spiritual symbols.
The Caryagiti in later years, influenced Gita-govinda and Vaisnava Padabali, and much later inspired poets Siraj Sain, Lalan Shah (d. 1890), Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Hason Raza (1854-1922), Kazi Nazrul Islam (1898-1976), Radha Raman and Shah Abdul Karim and some other later poets and litterateurs of Bangladesh.
The Baul songs were written in a Kavya form and includes lyric drama, pastoral, an opera, a melodrama and a refined Yatra or play. The poems bear a close resemblance to the spirit and style of the Caryagiti and old Bengali poetry. The musical padabalis, although composed in Sanskrit, actually follow the Bengali manner of expression and used rhymed and melodious mosaic metres, uncommon in Sanskrit poems.
One finds the impression of Maya borrowed from the Buddhists. ‘The world is nothing – we have to leave it behind’ forms a common theme. ‘Like the dew on the grass the body is transient’ is an essential message. We lament for that neighbour who resides ‘In the mirror-town beside my abode’ and ‘(but) haven’t seen him ever once’.
Buddhism and later mystic nature of Islam in Bengal also inspired the Hindu Krishna legend, an essential element of Vaishnavism in Bengal, which was formed in Bengal as early as the 6th or 7th century A.D. Evidence of this is found in the sculptures of Paharpur, the oldest belong to sixth or 7th centuries A.D. and the latest to the 8th century A.D.
The Muslim Pathans, who occupied Bengal early in the 13th century, settled in the plains of Bengal. This regeneration is personified in Chaitanya. The pundits’ and poets’ writing were silent, but not the singers of the mystic cults and folk culture of the common people.
The Muslim rulers learnt the Bengali language and lived with the people. Mosques and temples rose side by side. The Muslim rulers ordered translations of Sanskrit classics into Bengali for the first time for the common people to understand. Poet Vidyapati praised Nasir Shah and Sultan Giasuddin for their intellectual patronage. Mahabharata was translated into Bengali. Muslim Sultans patronized translations of Sanskrit and Persian works. Brahmins were compelled to write in Bengali. Bengali was adopted in Assam, Arunachal, Orissa, Arakan, Ranchi and Bihar. Bengali Punthi literature was highly influenced by Muslims and the Persian language. The Muslims introduced many Persian, Arabic and Turkish words into Bengali.
An enriched folk culture developed in Bangladesh due to both the Hindu and Muslim common masses and Bengali was its vehicle. Bengali was the common language and literature of the people. The unity between Hindus and Muslims in Bengali arose out of racial oneness, common interest and the communal life of the village. It was usual for Hindus and Muslims to take part in each other’s social and religious festivals.
A new culture, based on folk culture thus emerged in Bengali. The decline of orthodox Brahminism and classical Hindus culture, well before the Muslim conquest, and their virtual extinction after the conquest gave the new Bengali culture full opportunity to grow. Bengali literature found room to expand in the gap left by Sanskrit.
The tradition of mysticism still goes on in modern Bengali culture— literature, music, dances and also in religion, be it among the Hindu’s, Muslims or Christians. Mystic culture is unique of its kind in Bangladesh. The journey that started with the introduction of Caryagiti in the early Buddhist era mingled with other living religions, nationality, ethnicity, custom, rituals, and culture. The country and the people assimilated all of them and turned all those into a new philosophy.
Post-Carya or Pre-Chaitanya or Early Vaishnava literature denotes the literature of the time preceding the time of Sri Chaitanya, the founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. These include: Sri Krishna Kritana by Boru Chandidas; lyrical poems, known as the Vaishnava Padavali of Vidyapati and Chandidas; Sri Krishna Vijaya, the partial translation of Bhagavata Purana by Maladhar Basu and Krittivasi Ramayana by Krittivas Ojha.
Post-Chaitanya or Late Vaishnava literature denotes the literature of the time succeeding the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. These include: biographies of Chaitanya by Gaudiya Vaishnava scholar-poets and later Vaishnava Padavali with a special sub-genre based on the life of Chaitanya. Major figures of the Late Vaishnava literature are Krishnadasa Kaviraja, Vrindavana Dasa Thakura, Jayananda, Govindadasa, Jnandada, Balaram Dasa etc.
Mangal-Kāvy (Poems of Benediction), a group of Hindu narrative poetry, composed more or less between 13th Century and 18th Century, eulogize the indigenous deities of rural Bengal in the social scenario of the Middle Ages. Manasā Mangal, Chandī Mangal and Dharma Mangal, the three major genus of Mangal-Kāvya tradition include the portrayal of the magnitude of Manasa, Chandi and Dharmathakur, who are considered the greatest among all the native divinities in Bengal, respectively. There are also minor Mangalkāvyas known as Shivāyana, Kālikā Mangal, Rāya Mangal, Shashtī Mangal, Sītalā Mangal and Kamalā Mangal etc.
In the middle of 19th century, Bengali literature gained momentum. During this period, the Bengali Pandits of Fort William College did the tedious work of translating the text books in Bengali to help teach the British some Indian languages including Bengali. This work played a pivotal role as a background in the evolution of Bengali prose.
In 1814, Ram Mohan Roy arrived in Calcutta and engaged in literary pursuits. Translating from Sanskrit to Bengali, writing essays on religious topics and publishing magazines were some the areas he focused on. He established a cultural group in the name of ‘Atmiya Sabha’ (Club of Kins) in 1815. Another significant contributor to Bengali literature in its early stage was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, whose erudite spread far and near.
In 1857, the famous Indian Rebellion (The Sepoy Mutiny) took place. With the wind of it, ‘Nil Bidroho’ (Indigo Revolt) scattered all over then Bengal region. This Nil Bidroha lasted for more than a year (In 1859-1860). The literary world was shaken with this revolt. In the light of this revolt, a great drama was published from Dhaka in the name of ‘Nil Darpan’ (The Indigo Mirror) written by Dinabandhu Mitra.
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873) introduced Blank verse (Amitra-kshar Chhanda), Epic poetry and Sonnets in Bengali language. Dutt’s first epic Tilottama Sambhab Kabya (Birth of Tilottama) was published in 1860. This was the first Bengali poem written in blank verse. The story of Tilottama Sambhab Kabya is taken from Hindu Puranas. Michael’s greatest work Meghnad Badh Kabya (Slaying of Meghnad) was published in two parts in 1861. The story of Meghnad Badh Kabya was borrowed from Hindu epic the Ramayana and deals chiefly the final battle, death and funeral of Meghnad, son of Ravana during the Lanka War.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) is considered one of the leading Bengali novelist and essayist of the 19th century. His first novel Durgeshnandini, considered a benchmark in the history of Bengali literature, was published in 1865.
Bengali literature has also produced many other notable talents. For example, famous and popular Bengali poets include Ishwar Chandra Gupta, Biharilal Chakraborty and Kaykobad. Romesh Chandra Dutt and Mir Mosharraf Hossain are notable for there works of fiction. Girish Chandra Ghosh and Dwijendralal Ray were prominent playwrights of the time, whereas Akkhoy Kumar Boral and Ramendra Sundar Tribedi are famous for their influential essays.
This era also saw a rise in new literary publications, magazines and newspapers. A number of educational institutes also appeared all over the region. Both these developments helped to advance and nurture of modern Bengali literary movement.
The Pre-Tagore era also saw an undercurrent of popular literature which was focused on daily life in contemporary Bengal. The prose style, as well as the humour in these works, were often crass, blunt and accessible. A masterpiece in this regard was Hutom Pechar Naksha (The Sketch of the Owl) written by Kaliprasanna Singha, and satirically depicts “Babu” culture in 19th century Kolkata. Other notable works in this regard are “Alaler Ghorer Dulal” (The Spoilt Brat) by Peary Chand Mitra, Ramtanu Lahiri o Tatkalin Banga Shamaj (Ramtanu Lahiri & Contemporary Bengali Society) by Nyaymohan Tarkalankar, and Naba Babu Bilas and Naba Bibi Bilas by Bhabanicharan Bandopadhyay. These books arguably portrayed contemporary Bengali dialect and popular society effectively, and also incorporated now-extinct music genres such as Khisti, Kheur and Kabiyal gaan by stalwarts like Rupchand Pakhi and Bhola Moyra. Books like these have become rarer since the emergence of Tagore culture, and the burgeoning preference for literary elegance and refinement in Bengali society.
The most prolific writer in Bengali literature is unquestionably Rabindranath Thakur. Rabindranath dominated both the Bengali and Indian philosophical and literary scene for decades. His 2,000 Rabindra Sangeet play a pivotal part in defining Bengali culture, both in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Two of his popular songs were taken as the National anthems of India and Bangladesh. Other notable Bengali works of his are Gitanjali, a book of poems for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and many short stories and a few novels. It is widely accepted that Bengali Literature accomplished its contemporary look by the writings and influence of Rabindranath.
In the similar category is Kazi Nazrul Islam whose work transcends sectarian boundaries. Adored by Bengali people both in Bangladesh and West Bengal, his work includes 3,000 songs, known as both as Nazrul geeti and nazrul sangeet. He is frequently called the rebel poet mainly because of his most famous and electrifying poem Bidrohi or The Rebel, and also because of his strong sympathy and support for revolutionary activities leading to India’s independence from British Rule. His songs and poems were frequently used during the Bangladesh Liberation War to inspire the Freedom Fighters. Though he is acknowledged as the rebel poet, Nazrul very effectively contributed in all branches of literature. He wrote poems that light the fire against inequality or injustice and at the same time is known for his poignant romantic poems as well. He wrote a lot of Islami Ghazals and in the same time wrote quite a good number of Shyama Sangeet. Nazrul was not only a poet, he was writer, musician, journalist and philosopher. He was sent to jail for denouncing British Rule by his literary works.
The mystic Baul of the Bengal countryside who preached the boundless spiritual truth of Sôhoj Pôth (the Simple, Natural Path) and Moner Mānush (A person of the heart) drew on Vedantic philosophy to propound transcendental truths in song format, traveling from village to village proclaiming that there was no such thing as Hindu, Muslim or Christian, only moner mānush, the divine spirit.
The literature discussed so far can be more or less regarded as the common heritage of Bengal (both Bangladesh and West Bengal). Since the partition of Bengal in 1947, the Eastern and Western parts of Bengal have also developed their own distinctive literatures. For example, the Naxalite movement has influenced much of West Bengal’s literature, whereas the Bangladesh Liberation War has had a similarly profound impact on Bangladesh literature.
Farrukh Ahmed, Ahsan Habib, Syed Ali Ahsan, Shamsur Rahman, Abu Zafar Obaidullah, Sufia Kamal are some of the leading poets of post-Tagore Bangladesh and our immediate predecessors in literature.
The people of Bengal never played the role of invaders. They never usurped treasures, wealth, women and happiness of other countries. This peace-loving country always became friends to all. This is the philosophy that present Bangladesh wants to offer to its Asian neighbours and to other nations of the world.
As poet Tagore wrote:
Hethaey Aryo, hethaey Onaryo, hethaey Dravid, Chin,
Shok, Hun dal Pathan, Mughal ek dehe holo leen . . . . .
Dibe ar nibe milabe milibe jabena firey.
(Here Aryans, Here non-Aryans, Here Dravid and Chinese, the Shok, the Hun, the Pathans and the Mughals, all transformed into one body. We offer something and take something, others will mix with us and we shall mix with others and shall not return).

Before I conclude, I want to say a few words about why I translate poems.
When in 1954, I was a eight-year old boy, when my father started subscribing two English newspapers at our home, ‘The Statesman’ of Kolkata (India) and ‘The Dawn’ of Karachi (Pakistan). We were then living at Calcutta (Kolkata), because my father, Fazlur Rahman, used to work at Pakistan Deputy High Commission in Calcutta in the visa section.
Abba used to return from office at three in the afternoon, take his bath and food, then lie down on his bed, and call me, ‘Choto (that’s me, I was the youngest, the choto, of the family), I don’t know English now, read these papers for me and translate, so that I can understand’. I used to read out the news, editorial, sub-editorials and other serious write-ups loudly and tried to translate those into Bangla for him. These went on for quite a good number of months.
Those were the first steps of my translation. Since then, whenever I would find a piece of article, written in English, I was in a habit to translate it into Bangla and go through it to dig out the inner meaning. Gradually, it became my hobby, and then my obsession and later my profession.
I passed more than thirty years in my job in translating medical and scientific papers and those were either published or were shown to the audience in power point presentations. Most of my colleagues were medical professionals and whenever they had to speak to the non-academic public to aware them of the problems of health and personal management, they used to come to me with their papers, obviously written in English to be converted into simple Bangla. These went on and on.
Though, at first I was easy in translating scientific papers, novels, and short stories, I was not happy with a few translations of poems that I did earlier. To me, those works were not worth mentioning, but later works started to become more and more engrossing with inner feelings and unseen meanings and also have the stance of poems.
One day, one of my literati friend came to me and asked me to translate fifty poems of fifty poets of Bangladesh. He wanted to publish a book of poems in six languages, including English. I was skeptical at first. Because I was not sure how my acumen in translating scientific subjects can be switched on to a subject, where emotions are at forte and theme is absolutely different.
When I started doing the work, I got mesmerized with the ideas, the words and the language that spoke of something else than it apparently meant, they convey other feelings, than is understood superficially. It was not an easy work. Well, I could convert the Bangla words into English easily, but it took some of my engrossing hours to select appropriate, meaningful and melodious word for each of its words.
Bangla language is different from all other languages of the world. It has so many words in its vocabulary, which could never be converted into other languages. Such as, abhiman (it is different from conceit) or Joytsna (its not as simple as moonbeam or moonlight) or lojjya (it is not bashful or timidity), which I fail to convert into English. How could I? But somehow I managed to express the feelings and tried to impose the melody. That book was published and was accepted by the readers.
And then, one by one, my poet-friends got interested, and I kept on converting the Bangla words into English and books of poems started to come out. Publishers also got interested. They too started to request me to give them more translated manuscripts.
I got the reward. I have now twelve books of translations on my credit. If I counted all the poems I translated in numbers, it surely would cross one thousand figure. I don’t know how, but I became fascinated in translating poems more than other subjects.
Bangla literature is rich – outstandingly rich. It dates back to the period, when literature of most of the countries of the world has not seen light. When Rabindranath Tagore got Nobel Prize on literature in 1913 (well, Gitanjali – Songs Offerings, was a translated work!), no other Asian, African or Latin American literature were known to world literary connoisseurs.
Since 17th century, Bangla literature is thriving happily. Since 1971, after Bangladesh became an independent country, a good number of works were translated and published each year, though its international exposure remained at its lowest level. Dailies, both Bangla and English of Bangladesh, give least importance to literature. They have two pages on sports each day, but only half a page on literature per week! Let aside a single periodical, weekly or monthly journal on literature are only a few. Whereas during fifties and sixties, there were dozens of journals of literature, which were very rich in content.
Our litterateurs DO NOT write in English or in any other European or Asian languages. A huge quantity of world literature were translated and published here in Bangladesh since 1940’s, whereas only a handful of books of Bangla novels, short stories or poems have been translated from Bangla to other languages. It’s a pity!
During the last decade, I have been able to translate seven books of poems. All of which attracted the readers.
I will keep on translating Bangla literature till my last days, especially the poems, because I like translating poems, I like reading poems, I understand poems and I love poems.
I feel really proud to include the poems of almost all the LIVING poets who are born after 1920, i.e., poets of Post-Tagore era, and also all the major poets thereafter, even up to the decade of 1990’s. I have prepared this magnum opus, so that, I can accommodate almost all the poets whose poems were published during 20th and early-21st centuries, so that, the readers can taste the flavour of Bangla Kobita written during 1940- to 1999, a long period of six decades.
I have been able to accommodate 316 poems of more than One Hundred poets! (123 poets to be precise!). I have selected one to three poems of each poet, so that, one can get a wider flavour of thoughts and emotions of each poet. The names of the poets have been serialized according to the date of birth, though there are some deviations, as I failed to collect date of birth of some of the poets. An alphabetic list of names of the poets has also been provided at the end of this book for quick browsing.
I am grateful to Poet Kamrul Hassan, Poet Matin Bairagi and Poet Dr. Tapan Bagchi for extending their helpful hands to me by supplying poems of a good number of poets of Bangladesh. I am an introvert person, so most of litterateurs of Bangladesh, especially the poets, do NOT know me. Had not be their assistance, I couldn’t have collected and accommodated so many poems in this anthology.
I offer my thanks to all the poets for their cooperation in making this Anthology. Because of their help this anthology has really became a representative Anthology of Bangla Poetry.
I am really very sorry to inform the readers, that I could not include poems of a few prominent poets in this Anthology due to my inability to communicate with them. I will try to include them and some others in the next edition.
I do hope that this book of poems will become a milepost for the poetry lovers and researchers of literature, let aside a complied document of Bangla poetry ever made.
Enjoy the poems from Bangladesh- Bangladesher Kobita.

Siddique Mahmudur Rahman

ABUL HUSSAIN

To a Connoisseur of Poems

Don’t tell me, o friend, to write accurate poems.
I do not have the passion of making a peevish puberty-encountering maiden fearless or ill-tempered fleshless
lust of depressed old man.
I do not desire to glide through the muddy water of time
Casting white sail, to the country,
which is termed as colourful country.
I don’t want to soar up to Aloka in the golden rays
Of Sun of the noon, like a vulture, that fly leaving a corpse,
I do not feel like bragging as a poet. So I don’t want to
Play now only with polished words.
People are not convinced with words alone,
I didn’t like addiction to wealth
I wanted only a piece of cake and a shelter.
Let not an obstinate nature of wealth soften up
Let them suffer, who are suffering,
If rule of pen softens up to make plough and sickle powerful
Let us create an abode, the future generation shall sing songs.

I recollect

I remember my childhood days
When under the banyan tree of Diara
We used to play with marbles
Full of merriment
Sometimes
We would pass our days.

While going to Shoalpur from Sener Bazar
At the crossing of Diara
There was the banyan tree and the junction of three roads.
They are still there, I saw, that day, after seventy years.

The trees, animals and birds too have life like human beings
They remember all what they get and from whom they get
Whatever they get they returns back.
The road lies like a piece of stone
When anybody passes through it
Suddenly wakes up in that moment abruptly
I thought, one day we moved through it with clamour
Did that junction of three roads could ever remember it?

Before I leave

Does the time of departure nearing
I am ready.
Let me rest a while, before I leave.

What do you say?
What’s urgency?
Is evening nearing?
Let it be.

Please hand over the ash-tray
And another cup of tea
Give me the pillow, let me recline a bit
Don’t you have anything to say? Well?
You have lots to speak
What about that?

Alright come, sit near me
Have to be prepared? It’s useless
Tell me what do I have to take with me,
I do not bother about that
Those who want to prepare let them do that
The way I came, without any companion,
I’ll leave empty-handed.
Whatever I had as my savings
Let it be here
Somebody might need it any time
Before that
Let me rest a while.

ABU BAKAR SIDDIQUE

I can go on writing

I can go on writing only about me all through my life
This self-manuscript is an eternal epic.
One day like a crumpled cold-stricken sinful person
I knocked at the doors from one place to another.
Today many bowed-headed reptiles roam by
Frantically sniffing at my words.
I madly built up this eternal epic bit by bit
Diluting the marrows of my spine.
Everyday the archaic-person search down
The depth of sands with the cogs of dredgers.
All the approaching human beings
Grow up gradually encircling my trunk,
As the water column cling to the cloudy-structure of undying pain
This is but an unending narration of the epic;
Encircling so many days, so many lives, so many classical journey.

I Recreate Myself

I didn’t wanted to live a life of satisfaction in fools paradise
Didn’t wanted aristocratic favour with bowed head
My endless disqualification
For which I run after all through my life
Is a ghost without eyes-nose and teeth.
I grow up breaking down to pieces
But never do I bow down
I go on digging a life-long cave
There lies the life-force locked up.
It’s really hard.
Yet this is my war, my lifelong battle.
I’m living a life licking the salt
The alphabets are but poison-tablet
I recreate myself, a complex me,
All through the night, all through the life.

Verses of Life

What’s the use of listening to the story of half-done life?
Look here lies the crumpled imitation crown
Broken pieces of wooden sword are strewn there
The youthfulness has only gave me pique
The childish tender sensitiveness
The satanic thug has cunningly deceived me from the luck of
The responsibility and attainment of a mature lover.
He will not let me stand erect.
No exchange is now possible in concealed love-making.
From the sky my wings are torn apart
I too am turning down the autograph-seekers.
I too have my own sensitiveness.
I have given many interviews, that’ all. Here, take it.
I am returning back the afternoon award.

AL MAHMUD

Poet’s exercise book is flying away

It seems I was going somewhere, some other horizon,
I turn back, there’s no one behind me
I’m oscillating in the wind- blowing up, your affection
As if is engulfing me.
Both of my legs
Are shaking violently
The leaves are dropping down endlessly
In front of my eyes my exercise book is flying away

I am going to write poems more and more some more years
I passed my morning and evening in juvenile game
Now I opened my fist and saw, O my god,
I’ve nothing left in my palm, but the life-line.

There’s no smell of gold coins, with melody
Its like I beg air from the wind
Money is nothing but palm of my hand- leaves of the trees
Falling down incessantly,
Oscillating
Like the exercise book.
Oscillating so impossibly, as if the poet is standing
The picture is standing
In the air
I look at it. It would be my own lesson.

My boat is floating on the water in front of me
I shall go far in the shoals
Is that my last destination?
May be I have my abode and bed lying there.
I Lived a Life and Death

I lived a life, a giant one
Where I reached, what I got, I know not
My body tremble, my heart aches
The way trees swing in gusty wind

I shiver, I move with both of my legs
I lived a ,long life till my death
I crossed a long way, I passed a long life
I lived a long life, what I got
I stretched my palms open
What’s written there?
Nobody knows. Unknown waves
Generated a storm inside my bosom
What’s your name? Where do you live? Wait a bit
Stretch your hands and let me touch you.

Can anybody tell, where am I? Where shall I go?
Waves after waves rise and fall in my bosom
Let the waves pass through my blood stream
For whom my hope enlivens and love enrich?

In the Darkness that hide tears

I go on speaking about the legend of love while walking
Does the road know what message I spread all over
She only beacons me, calls me, stares at me

Melodies of songs spread all over- crossing the intersection
Open the door O neighbour! The strange
Stretched her hands towards you
Give me some love and affection to this traveler.

On my palm spreads so many lines like branches
Suddenly I meet you in the middle of the boulevard
It inappropriate no doubt, but still I can touch
Your anchal, your sari.
It is not the game of scrambling, this is the game of love
Written on my path, I should meet you
The legend of love does not end
Now catch my hand- and let immerse into the discourse of love
There’s no end of exchange- this is, I think, love
someone’s tears are concealed in the darkness,
this is the language of love.

MOHAMMAD RAFIQUZZAMAN

Doubtful Reflection

Even the heart has illusion
So all day long
I call out, Hey Rafiquzzaman
Where are you going? You remain speechless.
Move towards darkness, towards life
Without rest, in pursuit of deer
From here and there, somewhere, anywhere,
Some other place, Where could it be?
Alas, O Time!
Remain wretched, like a dejected damsel
Stare on immutable, Pallid dampness
Only in intolerable silence
Like a cold corpse. There’s no delusion
hatred- ruined invitation
In those eyes. Still O Rafiquzzaman
Where are you going? What for?
Just think once
Even the heart can become blind.

Genealogy

Mom used to say,
There’s night, so there’s moon.
Papa used to say,
There’re hands, so there’re food.
I said,
There’s night, but there isn’t moon
There’re hands, but there isn’t food
Hey prostitute, you’ve your bosom
So
There’s happiness in submission.
Son said,
I’ve bullets
I’ve my voice
And have a skull to counter the bullets.

Commercial

The poets of the town are roaming
Naked at Ramna
They have tattooed their bodies
Engraving, I’m poet
I’m poet
I’m poet
I’m poet
I am.
I am, I am. Soft clothing of poems
Under the banyan tree of Academy
Like the crimson fruit
Spreading foods for the crows
Carelessly throwing away
Roaming at Ramna
With heated artifacts of tottoo
Looking for Bodlier’s back
Keeping soft lips
On the consumed Ramna’s figure
Think with arrogance
Ramna means Dhaka
Ramna means whole of Bangladesh.

MANIRUZZAMAN

Your Love

If you fear dark death
Then why did you run towards destruction?
why do you role-play of stretching your hands
In the centre of life towards different darkness?

You keep sleek rays of the morning
On your bosom as a dew-drop
When Cuckoo starts singing in high pitched voice
The destruction can be overlooked

O Golden-lover, in your soft body
On your soft bosom ornament dazzle
Beside all these, tell me when a little love will
Kindle up in your heart for me?

If you are shy of love,
Then where did you threw away the fear of death
When you lie beside me like a sounding cataract
Whether you turn out to be a Behula-play?

When Cuckoo comes, you beacon to it
And when it is rain you turn out to be Radha of Bidyapati
When it is a battle you become charioteer of my chariot
Still I become dejected filled in this darkness of life
In darkness, in deep darkness.
Is that your stage show?

Bewilderment

I’ve given you all the illumination of the sky
The Arundhati star perceived in the timid light of lamp
I’ve kept in your hand my life’s desire
I’ve kept you constantly deep in my heart

If you wipe away my stupid wailing of my heart
Smeared up the drawing of the full moon
Looking at your face I couldn’t find out
The waves of love in the songs of illumination.

Moneghar, Rangamati

Tell me where shall I quench my thirst
Where do I get water
Where do I get peace in the soft large eyes of the doe
Wherever I turn my eyes, Augosto sucks out
Every drop of water
I’m destitute, insolvent, I’m absorbed in shock.

I visited Furamone and listened to Vante
I stopped at Moneghar as thirsty tree
Here flower bloom on the trees, the supple birds sing,
Contented Vante is the source . . of happiness, of virtuous water.

The island of eternal dimness hums out in serene monastery
Moneghar is splendid, in education and in dedicated service.

RAFIQUE AZAD

Be polite, apologize

Dear pen, don’t be obstinate, learn to be humble
Look, how these gentlemen got shocked
At your stubborn behaviour ,

So, be polite, apologize modestly, with clasped hands
Bow down to your knees, and tell, it won’t happen again, sir
Tell them, O middle-class gentlemen, Forgive me for this time.

Speak out, O pen, O ball pen,
O you my barbarian attitude of expression
I offer my penance, I will not reproach you again
I will learn to respect your hypocrisy
I’ll try to respect the immense strength of digesting humiliation
It won’t happen again, O honourable middle-class propensity
Like you, from now on, I’ll consume all the disgraces
And turn it to night-soil and throw those away outside my body
O untamed writing weapon, O inerasable ink, O mean ball pen
Be gracious, learn to be polite.
Become meek and mild, be gentle, like a gentleman
Try to hide unpleasant truth
Learn to tell lovable lies, sell out your conscious
Do not express such words, which will make them hurt
Be polite, try to be polite;
The pious discourteous mind and brain you have
Make them to be your obedient servant
O my rowdy pen, control your anger
Write like a man, pay respect to those gentlemen,
Try to learn attractive words that pleases your lordships.
O my pen, now become submissive, bow down,
Teach yourself all the behaviours of learned chimpanzees
Therefore, be obedient, learn to be respectful, be polite.
If I get Love

If I get love I’ll again correct
All the errors of life
If I get love I’ll take up
All the bundles for the long road ahead
If I get love at the end of long winter night
I’ll get velvety days
If I get love I’ll leap over the mountain
And swim across the ocean
If I get love my sky will
Turn quickly into blue of autumn
If I get love I’ll get
Resonance in my life.

Remembering you

Recollecting you my blood turn into a stream
I like to think of you
You navigate through my path
Remembering you, even today
My blood churn through my heart always . .
It was not possible to walk side-by-side a long way,
We vowed to remain close both of you
Life-long through the road without destination
The road that met ahead of us in a cavity of light.

SHAHID QUADRI

Senses
(To Mahbub Hasan)

Shalikh dance on the telegraph wire
Palm-size leaves of Kathal tree
Dawdling of light on the shrubs on the bank of the pond
Here comes the Aswin
My days emptied
Why does the days are empty?

On the borders of snow-white clouds
Whom does the sky send its own sapphire dazzles?
Here comes the Aswin
My days emptied
Why does the days are empty?

When did the Shefali dropped down to somebody’s courtyard?
Can flavour of young-boyhood days be remembered?
Like those clandestine manifestoes that are distributed by young hands
The large city is greatly busy
Here comes the Aswin
My days emptied
Why does the days are empty?

Insurrection

In the garden of Manzul Elahi
We are sitting in the dappled evening
A few of us. We talked, of many a subject
Some said of Bangabandhu,
In this connection about murdered Allende and
Some commented about the history of the of upraise of Chile’s army.
However, subjects of Iran and Iraq were also discussed.
Uncertain future of Cuba after Castro’s departure
Dominance of unscrupulous traders
And about the distress of the people of Bengal,
Lifelong starvation, we all talked about all these
While chewing cashew and drinking coffee.
Gradually night descended
Like silent steps on black cat
The fireflies blinked around the tables and chairs
As if they will remain blinking for ever.
We went to the dinner table
Manzur Elahi repeated, Rifle is the source of all power.
Classless society can not be achieved without bloodshed
Nobody gives up the class interest.

I looked through the window
And saw the entire garden of Manzur Elahi was captured by the fireflies.
Without a battle, without bloodshed.

Coherence
(To Respected Amio Chakraverty)

Wild boar will find favourite mud,
The kingfishers will find desirous fishes
Nights, deep and dark, will be white in heavy rain.
The pea-cock will dance in the dense forest

Lover will make live with partners, positively
But shall never be happy, never, never . .

The lonely traveler shall return to his home
In the empty pot
White boiled-rice will shine like the stars
The rhymes of the forgotten songs will by sung in your voice

Lover will make live with partners, positively
But shall never be happy, never, never . .

Parades will come to an end in the army barracks
Hungry tiger will grasp a buffalo
The winds will blow through the villages
Bringing melodious tunes
You two will get shelter in a single room

Lover will make live with partners, positively
But shall never be happy, never, never . .

HELAL HAFIZ

Peddler

Sufferings needed? Sufferings!
Various types of sufferings
Sufferings needed? Sufferings
Red distress, blue agony, bright yellow coloured pains
Pallid pain of green grass pressed by stone
Dark ache of light
I’ve multi-coloured anguish
Sufferings needed? Sufferings
Sufferings of the house, of the alien, of birds and of leaves
Pain of chin
Pains of eyes, of bosom, of nails
I’ve sufferings of a man who get lost gradually
Sufferings needed? Sufferings
Pain of love, of hatred, of rivers and pains of the damsel
Severe pain of neglect and of humiliation
Sufferings of loving an immoral woman
Of gatherings of corrupt leader
I’ve sufferings of devastation by hydrogen
Sufferings needed? Sufferings

Sufferings of the daytime, pains of night
Pains of path of feet
Immense pathetic sufferings, sufferings of the hawkers
Sufferings needed? Sufferings

Nobody ever give you except me
Real artistic suffering
The lifelong sufferings of someone else
Who ever have destroyed everything
Like me?
Who ever can offer healthy agony except me?

I Wished

I desired I’ll make you empress and expand my empire
I wished I’ll make you the flag of happiness
And fly peace dove in my heart.

I wished like a dexterous makeup man
I’ll decorate the immense darkness with bright sunlight
I’ll make you play with the love of gallantry, Of I’ll make you play

I desired I’ll take out water drop by drop from the river
And place those on your timid lips
My lifelong cool eyes
Will radiate warmth on your eyes

I desired I’ll become king
Make you empress and expand my empire
Today I see there’s kingdom
There’s king too
There’s desire
But only you adore somebody’s house.

Forbidden Editorial

Now is the period of youth, its unique time to go to the processions
Now who has the period of youth, its unique time to go to battle

All the hands of the procession
The voice
The feet are on the same.
There are family man, family denouncer
Some build family in the thoroughfare
Some to burn down the family or to make family havoc
Those who advocate peace too come to battle
Certainly they have to, sometimes
At the call of profound existence
Some turn into war-monger desiring gold and wealth
Some love necessitate lover to become an assassin.
If anybody want to become a killer
He turns out to be
The proper time in now goes by.

Now is the period of youth, its unique time to go to the processions
Now who has the period of youth, its unique time to go to battle.

HAYAT SAIF

Light and Darkness

When the darkness of night descends
And the hours go deeper then you remain far away
I can not see you then
But the distance started to wane in the horizon

Darkness removes differences among one thing to another
Every particle of the universe then comes under my jurisdiction

I think your body, and heaves of breath
Everything have come at the arena of my touch

Then you can turn into a desired flower of happiness
in the silence of darkness and unity
As if nothing dissolved in the darkness
but was unified with it
As if with the break of dawn
Your lips, desire of your eyes and the voice
Shall find out their desired goal-
Another voice, another sensitivity
Another beating of heart.
But then the first morning light
separates you from me
and I can not touch you
And I can nor stay in your eyesight
Because light makes the boundary of everything limited
Only a few solitude, a few new ache
A few pallor remain in the arena of sight.

Human beings

Each one of us
Come out of
A single particle of
Nothingness
And each one of us
revolve around
A single centre
Inside a circle
relentlessly.

Then in some discrete minute
I think
We get detached
And surrender to
Another centre
And suddenly
Reach into another circle.

There I have pang in my love
The forgetful wailings and delight
In my wailings
I have creation and history in my joy
And in history lies harmony and abandonment.

Only a Touch

If you touch me
I kindle up once again
In great amazement as if dissolved in unison
The dream-wind blow

If you touch me
Satisfaction recite rhymes in the air
the submerged tree dwindle in love, sings
The running water of the river turns the cascade of love

If you touch me
Suddenly in the cattle-shed the cow cry out in emotional melody
In that echoing sound the colour change in greenery
The air play with melodious creepers

If you touch me
In the sounding track quivering soreness chime in my heart
I through away with great disgust
All the dream-songs, and the games I kept in me lifelong

If you touch me again
I swear, I will distribute poems again
Everywhere around.

ASAD CHOWDHURY

And then I was a man

There was fire in the water
There was fire in the rain
There was fire in memancholic eyes
of Birangana
There was fire in the melodies of songs
Fire was in the poems
There were fire in the eyes of the dead
Who ever thought of that?
The dogs cats turn wild
Even the snake stings
The fishes even turns back
The sand particles scoprch
There was fire on the prowess
Of the Freedom Fighters
All injustice tremble
At the devastating storm of protest
These are all fantasy
Stories told in faraway time
Then I was a man
But now I’ve turned cheap.

Perspiring

I say, cursing my enemies,
The past was enormous and extensive in size,
The future a bit lifeless in contrast,
Somewhat pale, and slighter in volume as well.

The scope of effort has shrunk,
A good reason for lazing around –
No matter how dull the nearer past,
The nearer it burrow up in a devious way.

I’ve no desire for new stones,
Yet roaming peaks and caves and beaches goes on.
Just because I’m lucky, something comes along
In return for the old bouquet of flowers, though.

You’d hear the echo of the future
In life, in dream, in memory
Indifferent to judgment, tolerant and merciful –
Yet, alas, your body sweats your mendicancy.

Dream-wall

Dreams have no doors nor walls
They stroll like open skies,
White birds
flying
circling
In the deep blue sky.

Some raise fascinating walls in dreams
Wishing to grab away dreams
Desiring to cover them up in dresses
Awkward and discomfited like camels –
This is their aspiration.
Only poets can hear
The lament for authority.
Are dreams, then, some hopeless expectations
Shut up within walls?

AL MUJAHIDI

Fanciful Painting

– Our planet is going to be destroyed at midnight
At this intense ruin, how could you remain solemn, O woman?
I sing the hymn of silence.
– There’s no one called Supreme Being golden provisions?
I sing the hymn of silence.
Have you ever went to the aerial of ocean and forest?
Yes.
The immense water and glittering winged fishes of the ocean
I talk with the middle-class insects
Of the dark dense darkness Earth. From the deep womb of Time
Rise up the present future.
I recreate all through the day and night
A fanciful painting.

Dark Stallion

The black horse of Attila gallops fast
Destroys the golden handle of the civilization
Ancient monuments, Cornea of the nature
Deep sigh and dialogue of the Earth tremble

Men and women live their lives under the shade of war.
The trees, shrubs, Hiroshima vulgar life
Under the prehistoric darkness there are shadows of primeval ghosts
Behind the night the night diminish, diurnal pathos
Hated breath of the Hades flare up; wreckage:
We know not when the death-like havoc will lessen
The dark horse will come to a halt looking at the face of a child
Laughter like the stripes of Giraffe- drum-beat of harsh dispute
The ocean-birds, enlighten citizen and butterfly come
floating to the Earth
In the brightened festivity of the forest.

Looking Glass

Darkness, tell me, whose deserted mirror are you
Reflectionless non-blinking resemblance
Deserted mirror, tell me, whose darkness are you
Portrait of unclose, candid soul.
Hazy rays of light burn on the cheek of Time
Darkness, tell me, whose talon of deserted mirror are you
My Earth, whose history of traversing living soul.
My soil, are you awake? Life solitary kindling of intellect.

SYED SHAMSUL HAQUE

Lonely Poet, Deserted Restaurant

Write up in the brain. The restaurant close by.
Asharh turned up in bundles of clouds
It will make you feel dejected, destitute- the roads are all dug up
Who knows when those mud will be removed
One has to move among these rubbles
Poems and coffee are in waiting.
Suddenly the rain starts, lightning roared
The poet slipped and fell.
The body covered with mud. How could he proceed?
He stood languid, the time goes by
Still the love does to leave
Dejection still is present.
Though the path is slippery, the dress got filthy
Walk on, Move on, do not stand still.
Whether time is hostile and repulsive-
Don’t let poetry be stopped
Poetry is not to be prevented.
There’s no end in sufferings. the papers are held tightly
Coffee beacons, the lights of the restaurant
Something instead of milk, black coffee, sugar of sounds.

2
The flowers in the flower-vase emit rain-soaked fragrance
The nightly restaurant displays sorcery
Whose open lock of hairs crush on the lonely bosom
When Asharh comes The Padma becomes unruly and devours acres of land
The fire roars up, jumps up in the air
It’s impossible to forget and opens up everything
Not in the past, the poet visits the vicinity of stars
When the poet knew the paradise is his forte
The fragrance of hair mixes up with the scent of flowers
Now the perfume remains – and the darkness.

3.
Warm smell of coffee. Two flowers are painted on the cup
Long stack of the flowers intertwined each other
So many days the poet came to the restaurant
And felt the desertion alone.
In Asharh the rain was heavy and incessant
‘His book of poems is beside him
Poet drinks his coffee sip by sip alone
The world is vast and anything can be his subject of writing
But today a single face- without the only one face
He has nothing with him
Love does not come to an end–
Coffee finishes sip by sip.

4.
She is absent, still the poet comes
Slowly pours coffee in the white cup
This is the same chair, this is the same table
The curtain of the window fly, still it is blue
The colour of void is white. death is dark black
What was all through the life- now it diminishes
Still flower and the ashtray are there on the table
Only she is not there. And turned into shadow
Ashes of the ashtray remain in pathetic air
The fragrance of that very day remain in the restaurant
The light beacon blew out on the river of memory
The watery writings are written by the pen.

Does this call Human

You’ve drenched your feet in filthy water, what else can you do?
I’ve placed a kiss on the tit of covered bosom
Desires are placed with the words, acts of Vatsyan
I learnt the meaning and the other meaning
When do you soak my feet with filthy water
When did my feet will take me towards you
I think about that all the times, the day wanes
You have the continent of piousness
And I’ve seen one stream of water
This is called human beings- I’m in love.

MAHADEV SAHA

A Poem of Kashbon

The sky is the Kashbon, beside the river
Children of Heaven play in the Kashbon
I looked at the garden of white cloud sitting beside the quay

Before feeling which was the sky and which was River
My eyes filled with cold-stricken white snow and ice
You have done good for not dyeing my hair
I know, the sky is but the nursery rhymes of the childhood days
But the clouds are white Kash flower of the sky.

I will be the bells of your ankle, cloud
I will be sleep in your eyes, Shall be a drop of tears
I’ll be the girls’ school covering the whole sky

Today so much Shefali flowers bloom, I’ll send you all
Take those in both of your hands, let me decorate those
with black alphabets.

Six alphabets on the map

I took up the alphabets and saw six of its letters
Have turned into the name of Bangalee.
They turned into the sodden sky of Bangla
Have turned into thirteen hundred rivers

I have engraved these letters and moved to many-a-places
Countries all around, in the conferences and meetings, at the gate of United Nations
Everywhere I told Here I am a Bangalee
My identity is Skeikh Mujibur These six words.
I do not have any other characteristics

I saw everywhere immediately all the doors get open a jar
On the walls of United Nations the echo of
the first speech in Bangla echoed
The earliest song of Charyapad

I then start to feel may be today is
Spring Festival
Today is the gallant procession of Pahela Boishakh,
The heroic poems of Liberation War
And covering the entire atlas, there is six letters, like new morning.

I couldn’t remember all those things

A few people want to know to which woman of the world
I loved first.
A few people want to know to whom I write my first letter
Some ask, Which name did I wrote down first furtively
What did amazed me first, whose hand did I touched first
I could not tell anything about all these questions
of my first memories
I gazed on like an idiot.

Who ever recollect memories of first tears,
then there were so many rains
The word I wrote on the earthen slate first
Could not be told to anybody at any cost
When did I first embraced that white swan on my bosom
That feeling has mixed with the wind
The name I engraved first on the stairs of the lake
After so many years those writings were all wiped away with tears
How could I show that initial alphabet?

How could I express the feeling of my first weep after
I dreamt my first dream?
I’ve covered my face a million times when I first uttered
the word ‘I love you’.
When I first saw the rain on Earth
When I first heard the bird chirp, When I first saw the evening star.
No, no I couldn’t remember all those things
Nobody could remember those
Who have first given me a rose secretly
Have concealed a timid letter in my book
Who has first spoken to my ears a few words
intoxicating, like a cuckoo
All of those I couldn’t remember at all.

NIRMALENDU GOON

Sleeping Woman

Are you asleep? That’s better. Sleep.
I don’t want to wake you up, woman
Sleep.
At this cold-stricken night
If I die bleeding with cold-stroke
I don’t care, I’ll sacrifice myself
With winter-noose on my neck
Still I’ll not wake you up, woman
I’ll not make electricity
Churning your warm body.
Woman, are you asleep? Sleep.
Your sleeping body is like Rodin’s sculpture
It’s exquisitely unique.

In this deadly cold winter
You remain unmoving stone like Ahalya.

Weapon

There was a big crowd at the Police Station.
Hesitant soldiers of the city were collecting weapon.
Disturbed citizens, in harmony with the order of the martial law,
Deposited their shotguns, rifles, pistols and cartridges
Like vow-offerings at some holy shrine.
On the table lay the saint’s hand, like a flower.
Only I, disobeying the military order, turned a mild rebel.
Openly I am returning to my room,
Yet with me rests a dreadful weapon–
¬My heart. I didn’t surrender it.

The Ant

There was no need, but still we knew
Saving was practical. For a few moments let me hold you here,
Later the loss and profit can be considered, dear.
Thinking thus, an ant with amazed eyes,
Watches the lump of sugar covered with flies.
Even so do I, watch your shadowy profile,
Here, in my needless, loveless exile.
I haven’t loved you fully, though it was my duty –
¬I’ve kept some love in store.
Some cherished desires are still unsatisfied:
The blind-erotic skeleton of your beauty
I do safeguard in my imagination.
If I fail in this forlorn game,
I’ll chew and lick your beautiful frame;
Countless ants of my arms shall thee embrace:
Many have loved before, but I’ll be first in race.

MUNIR SIRAJ

Counting Time

My poems will not be published in this season

I’ve nor written about the
Rainbow-clad sarees
Spangled and embroidered with golden threads,

Not about the smile on her attractive lips
Not about love and beauty and adoration have I written,
And one must have courage to freshen what I write
At this time of history.
I am not one of those who enjoy rumpus life in colours and lights.
In my vision is the lonely child under the open sky
Whose lips are wet with dew drops in the moonlit night,
My words are that of pain felt by the sick cyanosed child—
For the youth in his twenties with torn trousers
Who swallows popped up rice with water to curve pangs of hunger,
And how such thorned words will find expression in printed form?
In this world of sufferings
I have no reason to feel delighted even in the house
with flowers and decorations
Reflected with lights bright as day,
And who will accept such words as anything but poetry?
My words are masked with the face of the sick.
Now at this time of tormented reality and tortured mind—
My poems may be thrown into the dustbin as
Waste papers, leaflets, proclamation of politics,
And he who throws away my poems, upon his head
is the glittering chandelier,
Wine on his desk and dancing contractions absorbs his thoughts.

Nobody will publish my poems in this season

Even though I do not care,
I do not feel sad,
I do not feel nostalgic for not being appreciated.
This may not be the time for me,
But for certain
The hull of time is in my grasp.
I shall wait to see a smile one the sick child’s face
That he grows with the waves of time,
I shall wait to see the bold fists of the youth
Passing life without purpose— raised in the air.
When his eyes will glitter like the stars in the sky,
And on that day !

Tell me what’ll happen on that day!

Procession

Tied to a vast people fast and forward I move.
I feel certain that I know my destination.
What lightning speed, thousands,
Sword with sharp edges, this procession
charges ahead.
Truth has blossomed in my heart,
I can feel the warmth of life under my feet.
This mass with full breathes
Leads to a destination, of a life
Of greatness without fear.
The rolling mass of people move like
a flood of great force.
I feel certain
That I know my destination, the
End of the road, thorned and rough.
Sharp edged sword, this procession
Pierces through all obstacles.
The lusterless, world falls behind,
Fresh and new sprouts unfold on the way.
It is hearsay now
That the moment is ripe,
And the feet dare cross the mountains
most fierce.

Unfurl the Red Flag

When burying me
Wrap me with a red cloth
Bury me under the
Krishnachura tree, O dear!
Bury me beside such a river
Where sunlight of morning and evening
Make the water crimson.
Today I feel my blood dance
To conquer death, O dear!
When I’m dead
Let a red flag fly over my head.

MATIN BAIRAGI

In Uncertain Future

… And then sound of falling and breaking down all around
I thought and I was at a loss at the shattering of the hill
All the energy is exhausted, light is wiping out
I am standing like a tree in a darkness,
Who can not stand erect at its own strength.
I seems that I have no memory, around me sharks are wading
The Time is approaching with its vulture-like beaks at the baffled people
The sky has stooped down on the heads. I wanted to peep through the doors of remembrance,
I wanted to recollect those days of history, the power of looking back, asexuality, Alzheimer’s are knocking my head.

My memories are clogged in the ruin scene of a city
Now I can not remember anything-
I only think the sky was not illuminated with moon,
the stars never lit up or no dawn is seen,
the winds never blew- flower never bloom
Only the birds flew dejectedly and shed snows and lost their target –

I looked before me and behind me, I saw no one
I only heard a moan. I felt the ocean is creeping towards the field
Hills are shattering down, and wild buffaloes are smashing
through emerald green cropland
I hear the people scream, but my eyes are trapped at a blank meadow, I couldn’t understand in future who will move
and reach the happy life crossing that vast field.

Travel 03

My mind is running fast to unknown destination
It will not stop once again
Traversing the sky and underworld jungle and moon
Will embalm with the pride of mud all over.

Went through a many places, many a country in the speed of light
Not stopping again once again
The hills or on the banks of the river
Flying alone unaided
Stares this way and that to the red end of the horizon

The more I tell him to stop, come down here
See the life, look life has stopped
Do not stretch your hands to that life

Then it stopped near a bird
Close to the forest, next to the tree, and stood at the courtyard
The moon started to shine whiter the sky turned flower-vase

The unfathomable night said, now move again.

Illustration 4

You stood for some times before the last picture of this series
Then touched it with your finger, came near it and went afar
Narrowed your eyes and gazed at the painting intently and said
One single hand like a rubber rope, pale and thin
Moving through the lands, to other country
Its background has the evident of green, violet, yellow and red
The illumination is expressed in the strokes.

What is there in the illustration! Only a hand!
A said: dejection, only feelings of depression
Can make the people return to illumination.

You said nothing, and
Only gazed at the illustration a few more times.

SIDDIQUE MAHMUDUR RAHMAN

We’ve turned into Islands

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
There are hundreds of miles apart from each of these islands
Or lofty mountains between one another, or frightening abyss!
Temperament, upbringing, mood, action and deeds
Of each of us are totally different.
As if a herbivorous does not see come near a carnivorous.
If, suddenly, by any chance we come close
Unexpectedly, all at once,
We dare to identify each other.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
One can not recognize each other’s speech, it turns illogical
Meaning of one’s dialogue turns to be totally different to other
When one smiles, the other think s it to be crying
If one weeps, the other imagines it as mockery,
As if he is frowning, or is malevolent.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
Somebody, as if, lives in polar area, the other in the dry desert
One is staying in the swamp, the other in prairie.
In a vast grassland, there’s no shady tree exist.
Some live in dense forest
The person who lives in the next flat is an alien.
The neighbour is absolutely unfamiliar, talks a different language
We find difficult in keeping union with relative
Lest he requests for loan, or any favour.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
Bounded, as if we live in eggs, shelled from outside
We do not dare to come out of the boundary.
We lost all the powers to break the crust.
We do not feel sympathy with the pains of others
We can’t share other’s happiness.
We do not have no feelings left in us.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
Self-centered, greedy, vindictive, jealous,
Envious, selfish.
Head over heels, in blood, flesh and nerves we’re abhorrent
We’re insensitive, we dare to stand beside a distressed person
As if his pains by any means shall spread over us
If my child, my inmates get attacked!
Its better we live far away from them.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
Gratitude is a word that is unknown to us.
We forget about the favours we got from others
We are shameless, brazen, blatant
But we never fail to snatch other’s share
We feel great satisfaction in it.
As if it’s my share, I shall take
Its their duty to give away.

Each of us now have turned into isolated islands
We feel great pain in sharing anything with others
But are very rapid in taking advantage
Then we forget, or we behave as being forgetful
Or we evade ourselves from the prick of conscience.
Lest we have to show gratitude,
Lest we have to assist or help him.
Lest we have to spend a penny
One single penny is each of our limbs
We feel pain in detaching with it
We feel great pain indeed.

Each of us have turned into
Isolated islands now.
The Deity

The other day I saw a snake.
It was cloudy day, full of dejection
I was counting minutes with
distress and agitation
I was longing for a bright sunny sky.

And then the snake with its bifurcated tongue
Flickering like lightning
Came out of a crevice of the earth.
It was a tiny crack, as thin as a hair,
But the snake easily started to come out of it from it.

Then
As it came out of that fissure it gradually turned bigger and fatter.
Progressively it changed its appearance.
Sometimes it was a tiger, its fierce nails are all protruding,
Menacing froths are coming out of its mouth
Sometimes it is a wee little fawn, fervent and animated
At times it looked like human beings, of different form, colour,
posture and character of North, East, West and South.
Silvery bearded, respectable, like a religious preacher,
Like a attractive, glamorous actress,
Like a scholarly, stooping professor,
Agriculturist, engineer, laborer, peasant, sparkling youth,
Or a lively pubescent.
Sometimes it is like a beautiful bird as a little magpie
Enchanting the environment with beautiful whistling song.
At these spectacular changes some people around me
were enthralled and were mesmerized
They went on commenting about those changes
So much beautiful, so very powerful, so gigantic, so pure and pious.
Some people rushed in carrying garlands, milk, honey,
Rats and nice, cats and dogs with them and
Offering the snake as its food
They went of saying, ‘Be our leader, O snake!’
I saw with great awe that the snake accepted the offerings
And said with a crude smile, I’m your commander,
Address me as your Deity.’
At the poisonous breath these men went on becoming lean and thin.
But they can not feel their evil condition and morbidity
But they went on worshipping the snake with all their might
And went on chanting like priests,
You’re grand, you’re life, you’re our emancipator of thousand years
Some people crushed to death under the huge body of the snake
Still reciting, our death due to you, is great sacrifice and gratification.

The snake went on becoming larger, encircling the locality,
The village, the towns and cities, the country, even the continent.
I understood there’s no salvation from the clutches of this snake.
I thought this is inevitable. There’s no salvation of the civilization.

Suddenly a slender boy, starving
Walked in with trembling steps
He has a small knife in his hand and a piece of burning charcoal
He looked at me with scorn while crossing, and said courageously,
Nothing is ultimate, except truth
Nothing is permanent, except truth
And there is another end after an end.
These two feeble hands are sufficient to annihilate the snake.

I felt great shame on my hesitation
In supporting and giving hand to that feeble boy.

MAKID HAIDER

From Now On

At first look at the website
If not look at the fax
If at all unavailable
The search at internet.
After saying so
He went away hastily
To his car that was waiting at the office gate
Scorching rays of Baishakh Sun
Is burning out everything all around
The owner of the car spoke nothing
And while he walked a few more steps
He met you that man
To whom he wanted to reach
Through internet
Fax
In the website.
The man said- The Parliament has passed
In voice vote
That from now on
We all can sing
The old national anthem.

In the Merry-Go-Round not far away

Why I gave my consent at her proposal
I’ve to take her with me
She will visit
The Chaitra Sankranti Fair.
When we reached there, we saw
All the people of the town
Has boarded on
The Merry-Go-Round
Suddenly she spoke out beside me
Let’s go to some far away place.
As I assented to her offer
I thought the could love to have
Sweet made of molasses
I didn’t reply but stared at the sky above
I saw the last cloud of Chaitra is approaching
Towards us.
There’s nobody
On the Merry-Go-Round nearby
Only two of us
Were there in that Chaitra Sankranti Fair.

Beside You

Only you will call me
You’ll only be beside me
Only you’ll stay.
If to weep, I’ll only weep
Alone I’ll, in the deserted night
Beside you
I’ll bring lightning bug
Where you’ll stay alone
Leaving me
All on a sudden the other people will call
In the morning, in the evening
Then you’ll leave your nuptial room
One step, two steps, three steps
You’ll come out and see
I am standing beside you.

RAFIQUE NAWSHAD

Can a body turn into a tree

Can a body turn into a tree? This body? This human body?
No, it never be, This infirm body can not
Spread itself deep in the soil.

The trees have roots- extended deep into the earth,
spreading entwined.
In deep affection the roots penetrates into the soil.
As if the soil mingle with heart, buried around unfathomable root, pledged to the trees.
Those grow above the soil
As if surrendering to happiness.
Trees, therefore, very neatly wearing emerald outfit
bow down slowly laden with fruits.
And grow up in orchards and wilderness.
And the body? It also breeds on the earth.

Still
Can a body can become a tree? Can it be?
This body? This human physic?
No, it can’t be. This hopeless body can’t stretch or
tangle into the deep soil like trees
Rather, was worried with hundreds of doubts,
the shadows of graves swarm around in empty voice.

Alas, O body! knelt down in misgivings, walk in hesitant steps.
They do not have any roots, or barks.

I’m weaponless

I’m unarmed, I’ve come to this earth alone, in your world defenseless, I’ve not adorned myself in the folds of my body,
Only an uncivilized dialogue is awake
On the pollen of Bokul bloom with dread of abdomen

Are you not happy? Do you throw away faults
of habitation and women, eat up Bakuls of dawn?
Flawless will be lost after being turned into sea-heron
On the bosom of wanton Padma at the waning light of the evening.

Matured at the opposing wind on the vast courtyard full of Sunshine
Your idol rings up with the forbidding age of youthfulness.
Love-stricken enchantment of exposed jingle rings out
To tear apart the meaning of life touching the invisible valley

Still I’m not armed, O Exquisite, in your arena
How radiant I’ve become! I’ll remain awake on the pollen of Bakul.

Planted the seeds of Pain

I’ve planted the seeds of sufferings on the inhospitable land
O seed grow up in a tree- as a poisonous tree,
Possess in your roots arbour of moan, suck up extract of jungle.
O seed turn out to be a tree,
Become a poison tree.

Famine floats in the air, population dust,
The shredded leaves of anguish fly
Puffs of wind mess up
The house, home
Ruined family

Still
There are tired footsteps
The clouds of South-West come hovering
The wailing of the storm grow up in the wind
Is he coming?
Is he coming!

Time passes on
Distressing time looses its borders
Brick-coloured Sunrays burn on the faraway cornices
Flowers- birds- butterflies
And the venom of the bees builds up.
What’s the purpose?
Nobody knows
Nobody woke up
In immense uncertainty
In terror
Only the sounds of wailing
And weeping prevails
In the obstructed lunatic wind!
Is he coming?
Is he coming!

HABIBULLAH SIRAJI

Kingfisher, Krishnachura and Manjumala

I’ll love you, so I caught a kingfisher and kept in a cage,
I planted a krishnachura in a tub to fill your lips with kisses
I desired copulation, either in wings or in branches
Manjumala, you didn’t take anyone of those-
The kingfisher flew away, its colours were released, Krishnachura lives in the forest- Its neck rose up to the sky
Forty years have passed like this.

I loved you, so in conceit the kingfisher didn’t touch fish for long
My feet had different touch
Green and blue were not exposed.
I loved you, so in conceit, krishnachra never met Radha for long.
Spread a good trap, insects touched the cheek
Green never fly colourful images.

A drop of poison and endless neglect
The beaks of birds and roots of the tree
Are profound exposure; and Manjumala, you,
Did I have any other fault?

Tiger Day

Today is Tiger Day, There’s enormous gathering.
Soldiers of Defense Ministry greeted the day
with twenty one gun salute early in the morning.
National flags and anthem was arranged by Home Ministry
March Past was organized by Child and Youth Ministry
After the display of Air and Naval-soldiers
Handicraft exhibition was arranged by the women
and debate competition was held by the youths.

With the passing of hours hullabaloo increased, uproars after uproar
The old member have titmouse in his teeth,
the children are pertinacious.
Someone sneezes on the open tails of tigers.

In the tiger day dinner, subjects of cages and zoo got importance.
Besides the speech of the President, multistoried forests
And in the repost of the Secretary the proposal of
Founding of cardiac-hospital and science-university got the priority.
Then the damsels prepared for a dance sequence.

When night approached the post went to sleep
and eunuch Ranger went to tie wife’s hair.
Sincere Thursday became ready to turn into Friday

At the end of tiger meeting, the hunters took charge of the forest.

A Fascinating Day

A death, while playing hide and seek
got down in the Roosevelt station
The sweetmeat vendor didn’t have a recess.
The milk was boiling, The sugar have ants in it,
The waiting noon stopped beside a wheel chair and
as he looked to the East an impending accident crawled.

That morning was dangling on the bag of film-maker
showing seventy-four.
It then alighted on the footpath and raised the banner in the afternoon
In it a false-bearded flutist and a hospital matron
from the wholesale market
Searched for death
Dangle at the basket-ball ground.

At night, another death
Escaped from the forceps of the dentist
Jumped at the Hudson and saw
entire underworld was confined by cormorant
The bottles remain open
Like a floating kite the tits dangle and elderly peasant.

Without passport the death crossed the JFK.

KHURSHID ANOWAR

The Fiction Of Dry Leaves

Some one tied anklets on the ankles of the wind
With seductive rings, but that too, of dry leaves.
Some one gets distressed from within
As dry leaves keep piling up.
The tunes of long lost days jingle in microwave.
Racing further and further back some one,
Past his prime, now four-decades old,
Comes to a halt at boyhood days.

Another person reserves rain on the breezy passionate eyes
That too in the blast of storm.
But at the slight touch of a saree’s end
Some one get chocked.

Some one seals the windows and doors
And lie down on the dreary mornings.
And slowly drops to sleep before night-fall—
That is when the dry leaves sob under the steps of wind.

Moonlit-night in Ramu forest

All night I picked up moonlight at the forest of Ramu.
With two adoring hands.
The vast sky filled with magnificent full moon
Under the Nageshwar tree over the secluded grasses
The shadow made amity with moonlight;
Immeasurable mist crept up on the steps
Paints devotion on the bare feet of men,
When your deep sensuous touch permeate
From the root to the stump of Gamari tree,
I feel my existence pulsing through every leaf,
I listen to the known footsteps
In the moonlight, in the shades.

Whole night I gathered moonlight on the beach of my bosom.
When the sounds of falling leaves of rubber forest
Ravished the earth with kisses
I became the lord of all trees and moonlight that night

Some of my friends dragged and undressed the full moon
And looked at the mating of the moon and the sky
While I kept speechless all night with lonely vigil
The azure pain of the sky churned from the ocean.

Zahurul and Kaiser tried to disengage me from moonlight
When I was rapt in measuring the distance
Between each grass of the surrounding hills

Defeat

All the limbs of my body
Are not cooperating at this moment,
But how could I blame you?
At the closing dusk of four decades
All I could pick up is a trace of twilight.
Agonies are now having a skip
On the vast uninhabited panorama within me.

Do you really think this body a marble temple
Flushed with milk-white moonlight?
And perfumed with silky smiling mist?
The charioteer is close at hand
But he merely paints the emptiness

Every vanguard limb of mine
Is forced as the moment to yield up
In this mortal single contest
In this sinister erotic art.

ZAHANARA BARI

Lawlessness

All through my life,
It was my nature
Where there is impediment
I feel my inclination.

Where road ends
Where soreness knows no bounds
I feel happy to tread on that path
If there’s river or animal-filled forest
Or full of impediments
Where unification is not alliance,
Uncontrolled conflict
There lies immense smoldering of desire.
Conscious is detained, or departed
Where everything is bound by exclusion
Go in value in strict balance.
I feel my fondness.

MAYEEN CHOWDHURY

Chandana

When it is impossible to recognize me and myself
Then it is understood, I’ve lost something
A few bits of moonbeam or a bunches of fireflies
I search hectically , have touched the dreams.

I scream, and say to Chandana
Here I am. Come to me, here
The birds smile Chandana smiles
And says timidly, ‘I do not know you.”

Anampia

Sometimes I want to go back to history
I want to see signs of Sandalwood powder
On your crescent-like forehead
I want to take you to remote Harappa,
Where you are still waiting for me
Wearing the terracotta ornaments.

You have turned into a droplet of the great ocean
Listen Anampia, I still love historical you.

Sufferings

What are you doing now, Is it night, now? what’s the time?
I know you are in my heart, alone
Whereas, look, this weird watch is ticking accurate time
And preparing tapestry of pain and sufferings.

Do you know the difference of pain and suffering
Pain is the last failure of kiss
And if I had to speak of sufferings, then, it is
Sudden drowning of all alphabets in the life-ocean
And then all around us is endless darkness
Devoid of droplets of fireflies .

Now, listen, Don’t you know anything?
Now it is night time for you,
And can you think about the dark dazzling light
Suddenly wipe out in the darkness of light?
If you could, then you can feel the
Meaning of the difference of pain and sufferings
And you’ll get all the history of failure that lies within the ocean.

MUHAMMAD NURUL HUDA

Travelogue

The key could not be found, they quickly broke down lock of your door
You didn’t tell anything.
They freed you in wooden box, the Earth closed down its backside door
You didn’t tell anything.
Keeping aside the paddy-seeds, offspring emptied the grain-storage
You didn’t tell anything.
Southern side of the door at the place of last-bath,
there is the wings of butterfly
You didn’t tell anything.
For you waits the property, chest, documents, the quilts, beds,
You didn’t tell anything.
You are in the world of touch-untouchable, seen-unseen,
spoken-unspoken
Are you Gilgamesh, Its movable travelogue?

Flute of Shadow

After twenty years I said, I love you.
Twenty years. We live side by side
You are not surprised. You smiled,
You will get my reply twenty years later.

No, I do not waited.
I do not love to get back in return
My fondness never look back. Never laughs
My affection only weeps with blind stare
This is my fate. Only because at last I too
Stepped on the love-trap.

Shall I wait diligently for your reply?
Wait for thousand years?
Listen, after that during so many days
My grave will be wiped out from the earth.

Box of Fragrant Tobacco

Its the time to speak truth. There’s no time to delay. Come, lets organize each one. Is this our work? There’s many works to be done. All works should not be performed at a time. Its the time to tell the truth. There’s many things to be learned. Shall it go like this? Whether mustn’t there be any problem within? Most of the time I don’t understand my own work. How much we shall wait? The description of drape is stunning. Until that time if I don’t find time to speak! Shall not I open the boxes of Scented Tobacco and see. In the New Year The cows will fight instead of bulls. The offerings will be smeared with blood. Hail Mother Swaraswati, Hail Mother Durga.

KAZI ROSY

Liability

If you give me a pinch of belief
I will be indebted to you for rest of my life

If you give me a bit of sustenance
I will remain in your magnitude

If you give me a touch of courage
I’ll break apart all your adversities

Make me of your own
I’ll never become myself again

If you give me love
I’ll give you all the worlds of love

If you teach me to walk to the path of death
I’ll only die for you only

If you live for me
I’ll be ever indebted in all your existences.

Shadow

Before your appearance your shadow became visible. It said it have nothing to declare . . it is entirely a shadow. I was searching for a synonym of love, I didn’t find any silhouette . . it was entirely love. Your shadow told me your are entirely remarkable.
Damp hair, sharp nose, totally stretched, you speak sharply, immobile, whereas too much dynamic. Her own self is like a rocking chair. At times stops at its own will.
I’ll look for her words among the stars of the sky.
In antique places,
Among previous people
In former you
Just like an ancient tree
I know very well I’ll not meet you again
I too am prisoner to the shadow always

How could I break down the chain of the penitentiary.

ABID ANOWAR

Oh Sum Total, Oh Whole

Where are you, oh the sum total, Oh the Whole,
as I shout with a moistened voice,
a darkness responds
with an invincible distant darkness.

You are far from the sum of parts, I know,
Yet I join the parts, steady and slow.
All destinies mark their insignia
Signs and symbols on their paths,
yet as I read the hieroglyph for Whole
I confuse like a newborn baby to whom
two round pieces of warm breasts mean mother
Here is my Mother ! My Mom !!
Baby wonders as it stares at her face
with utter surprise in its little eyes,
as if it explores like a solemn saint.
She is then known step by step.

In warm company, in affection and love;
Once she is discovered in the father’s bed
doing the same thing as a woman does.
A mother is a woman, in fact:
measured in pussy and thighs, bust and hips,
yet she remains a divine soul
when thought in terms of total or Whole.

Where are you oh the sum Total, oh Whole!
I fail to see you but you are my goal.
Thus fails an ascetic in church and mosque,
in a temple or a holy tomb.
‘You see these triangles’ once he said
(spreading his ragged blanket before my eyes)
‘I’ve mixed those with squares and spheres
for warmth of goodness in this earthly cold

But alas ! It’s a pale peacock of segmented rags,
a sum total of pieces and nothing more
to see a full spread of the peacock’s tail
we have to go far, go far, and fail!

Imageries Of The Yellow House

Silence has devoured the Yellow House
The owner nods on a broken couch,
No matter it is dusk or dawn;
Gloom is shelved with the dust of time;
A dead bird rests fallen headlong
on the deserted lawn.

A woman embroiders her sorrows and pains
Needling deep inside a torn-up bed;
Her little boy, with a thoughtful look
Probes into an entangled thread.
The familiar sun that shines for all
Uses the House as setting zone;
The moon unveils her reverse face
As she crosses over the House alone.

The walls are bleeding,
and the glasses distorted;
Sparrows peck their feathers off,
Tired and angry as they are.

Poets are happy with songs of grave;
I’ll give this house a magic touch,
A magic way to live and save.

ASIM SAHA

Astonishment

Three fairies were flying past through the dense clouds
The dresses, adorned their bodies, like flowers
Are flowing in the breeze. Meghnad, behind the clouds,
without hurl darts, stone-gazed on at the fairies,
Unmoved, and from the weapons, without hurling explosives
Garlands of Beli flowers are coming out.
Their fragrance are engulfing the entire universe
The storm ebbs out. Meghnad forgets his promise,
Softened eyes emit dazzling lightning
The fairies plunged into the bosom of Meghnad
Warm scent of tits has softened all the tension of the Earth
Still, Meghnad can perform everything, but he can not move Away both of his eyes elsewhere, like a defeated soldier.

The Legend of Thirst

At times I look at Trishna, in the papers of newspaper
She hid herself in obscurity from the incidence.
One day I flew to Mehdi garden, talking with the wind
At that time she had in her hand
Colour of Mehdi, on her head adore headdress of different life
She sat on the throne lowering her face
She had thirst of a dry shoal- her friends
Didn’t understand all these- with wild fondness
They were singing spiritual songs
Then Trishna’s eyes emitted tears of forgetfulness
She tore away garland of roses of Basra
Nobody could understand, with extreme swiftness
Only one person plunged into the intense depth of ocean
Then the river had overflowing waves, from under the
Waves came out an unknown damsel. Only in the bough
Of Malatilata, a ‘piu kanha’ bird singing a song of eternity
Created an epic- called ‘Legend of Trishna’.

Dream

Move more slowly
Don’t wake up your poet
He is embracing you in sleep
You body has turned out suddenly to
Crimson coloured rose – in between secretly
Your poet’s tongue sucks up all the nectar

And showed you his devotion in his mind
Like this the path of life
Like a fast-moving fawn fly away in the horizon
But it’s hard to walk due to strewn thorns
A hand pulls the sprouting bud
A new dawn is seen removing the darkness of the night
I sit alone
And hear chirping of the birds
I look at the sky and see golden rays of Sun is approaching
I have to pass through the severe deprivation
I couldn’t look at your eyes
Tears fill my eyes, I did not bow down to the fear of life
I hug you fiercely and fill your lips with hundred kisses
In darkness, you call me, ‘Hey poet, get up
Its morning, do not sleep any more’
Wake me up and love me.
I wake up and see there’s nobody beside me
I’m all alone, and lost all the charm of life.

ZAHIDUL HAQUE

Eldorado

You belong to the land of entire attainments, like the Eldorado,
In the grove of cardamom with the scent of clove,
The melody pervades in the heart
But I search more into dejection and lamentation
The starry nights are turned into deep darkness

Lunatics

Holderlin and Nazrul in thirty six years
Can not surpass lunatics, not even in the revolt of art
May be they found something purer and silent
And I too encompass you – which nobody ever could.

Disappearance

You have left me so many years, and still are moving on
The rives flow – the settlement collapse on both the banks
Still, the river is dearer, and I bind you like both the banks
I swim past so many devastations, fruitlessly, in sweet dreams.

Balcony

All the melodies and the twilights, including the fallen leaves
Are dumped on the balcony – they are but memories
They walk past through the stars at night
The wind brings fragrance- sometimes the moonlight full of sorrows.

MAYUKH CHOWDHURY

Gradually Lajjabati*

1.
The leaves almost shrank out of ignominy
If she is only touched once. Her name is Lajjabati.
Though she remain awake every hour guarded by sentries of thorns
With violet shivering. Very secretly
After the touch is removed, they went on flaring more
And speaks out in drowsy voice-
Not all fires burn your fingers, you can touch me.’

2.
Look Lajjabati.
I also accept that fiery blazing progress
I’ll create a circle with ten of my fingers
You place your face in the place of flower
You’ve properly managed the thorn management
Shameless fingers can become reptiles
Then shivering incidence as usual buff
During whole night
From the figure seep down white blood wax drop by drop
The cavity of night are burn bright like fire
You become mixed up in light and darkness
You do not want to know after awaking up
Whose dead finger are smeared with morning mist.

3.
When after opening the bark you stand in the bathroom
With the touch of water again you turn to leafy fiery flame.
You body-river will burn down, branches, forest and hills
Then where did you get the food of Egyptian recipe

The lights of firefly

When coloured fishes at the end of scholarly night
swim from head to tail
The you are alone- decorated blossom.
Who ever created you adorning you with all the thorns
The history extinguished, the prevalence of wax shiver.

4.
Again in the night the firefly get back their lights
Again primitive darkness
In the pier of fire
The whole area gets known
Every night there’s murder, the dead body of Sheuly drops down
The eyes of empress do not get sleep, rays of violet colour
The dissolved desire of the body–
‘Touch me again, then do not come again;.

* Lajjabati= Sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica

SYED HAIDER

Woman

1 was suddenly enthralled,
It was love at first sight;
That day her entire person was clear as the sky,
The spheres of her rounded eyes radiated like glass
In the broad portion of her forehead.
(thanked my good luck.
Whoever possesses that woman
Will win a battle,
Whoever kisses her lips
Will speak the truth forever,
And go a long way against the stream,
Resting in her lap like a boat
Coveted like the crown of a queen.
Holding her half-ripped mango breasts
Within one’s cupped palms
He’ll feel as if he has possessed
Two-thirds of the waters of the world,
The rest will stir the whole of his body
Deep as the sea;
He who will go to bed with her
Will tireless be for a long time,
Perpetual desire will melt
Into the flesh and bone,
The green valley of her face
Will be purified with kisses.
I want to involve that woman
In all the journeys of my youth.
A woman is nice in darkness,
She’s more so in the neon-light;

A woman is like a moonlit night.
I know no one except that woman
Neither love nor war—
Nothing of this jubilant city,
O woman, where have you been all my youth?
Magic wands move incessantly
In the lap of the earth,
A monster touches our cold body;
I’ll lead an expedition
And wake this sleeping beauty,
Possessing that woman I’ll be a hero,
I’ll win a war.

Ants

Swarms of workers join the procession
With farmers leading it ahead,
The slum dwellers raise their voice
For a secured home, a shelter from bare wintry nights.

Its a strange time
When a worker could find respite only on strike days,
When production only means the rising of prices,
When foods and clothes are mere dreams
Yes the owner’s secret vault swelling up with illegal savings.
Avoiding the crowd, everyone lets his imagination fly:
They measure the procession and their own happiness too.
With a self-complacence they look down upon those poor faces.
Not knowing that ants can eliminate a living fly,
And rotten snail can cut a deep scar.

KHONDAKER ASHRAF HUSSAIN

Bow Down to Prayers

You’ll not get me in love, bow down to prayers, you’ll get me,
I’m not present in lust or sweat, warm-up in thirst, you’ll get me.

When the birds get excited, they invite their mates in their bosom-
Not shade, but have strength to kindle Sun’s heat
Only burn me in boiling water, illuminate me in choked rage,
You’ll get me.

I’m the last poet of the Earth, pride is my poem
Fill up sorrow and belief in my heart’s urn
Attach with me, become fruitful with full of life
You will not get me in result, impregnate with pollen, you’ll get me

I’m infused love, flawless pain, poisonous grape
Take my venomous seed on your tongue, and the blood of Jesus
Drink it, elevate the desire of your progeny, You’ll get me.
You will not get me in pain, one frustration
condensate on the blade of knife, like a drop of sweat. Sharpen it, incarnate it and you’ll get me.

Affliction accumulated all through thirty-three years , Take up all those on your hair
Disorderly shades of the birds that fly through the clouds
Are implanted in the iris, believe in flights, you’ll get me.

You’ll not get me in love, bow down to prayers, you’ll get me.
Not in terror of satisfaction, get heated in thirst, you’ll get me.

Faraway Bird

What are you picking up whole day Eternal Bird?
I ‘m picking up barley-corn, seeds and picking up life.
What are you searching inside the leaves and twigs?
I search for my own bosom, left over of my previous life
I look for missing youth, all my belongings, inexhaustible
After the tremendous storm in the non-painful tree,
I keep all my belongings, all cool afflictions of the past and go away
I keep desire, love in azure, ever-living stone
That was stored, then I am blown away in forgetfulness.

Whom do you call whole day, Eternal Bird?
I call shade, soft illumination, I call rest of full result
I call for my sole-mate with my hand stretched
Who wiped sweat from my forehead, and a creeper
That grew up at the far end of my courtyard
And who sang songs of extinction
Then I mixed up in the embodied being of water, leaves and dust.

At the end of the day where do you fly away Bird?
I fly to the flying cloud that fly away after fierce storm
Where light and shade build up identical abode
That slumber, oblivion, into that trees and creepers

What are you taking away on your beak O Bird?
I’m taking two twigs of straw, this death and another life.

RABINDRA GOPE

Blue Kingfisher

I wanted a green kingfisher in the entire body of a fish
From the intern bosom if it can take out toxic breath
With its sharp beaks
Kingfisher goes back
The kingfisher did not immerse in the hurting expanse of water
Poisonous breath concentrates into the chest again
In the breast of wrath-filled days the treacherous dream
Devour shearing of dreamy luxury of life.
Creepers of memory spread out from the heart
Pain-stricken wind interweave memory-driven golden dreamy days
I dedicate my prayers to the deity
At the lonesome night of the pages of history.

For me I desire

For me I desire some stealthy freedom
I want for me one secret box
Where my own sorrows can be stores
Piled up, can be stored in the memory bank.

For me in my eyes, inside my sights
In the darkness of the night, in my own moonlight
I desire liquid happiness
For me I need rippling river shaded with drenched clouds
In the lonely nights I want to swim in the high tides of that river

What else do I want for me
I want to undress the nature
And I want to look into her intently
What else do I need?
Well droplets of dream. Well that everybody wants.

I want for me games of sound and colour
Its trifling, if I don’t have moonlight
But I need the gloom of its stains, without which my desire is partial
Its the moon, that manages the life and death, to it I am captivated.

I want expectation of other person for me
There should be essence of love into this expectation

I need warmth of waterfalls in the rippling waves in the body
I want for me a clandestine cage to captive her into it.

Deliver me

Deliver me in the body of rain
Deliver me with the scent of soil with the dust
Deliver me in the abode of moon
In the rays of the sound of your name.

Deliver me, unite me
With the throbbing of your heart
Deliver me with the nature of Rajanigandha
Deliver me in with the emptiness of your existence

Deliver me with the glass of wine full up to the brim
In the heart of cigarettes, in the gun-powder of the matches
Deliver me in the tea-cup offered in the drowsy eyes
Of your dearly afternoon nap.
Deliver me with your beautiful smile
Deliver me on the crimson dot of your forehead
Deliver me with the rainy water of your shower
And plant my body in the soil of sunbeam.

DAUD HAIDER

Why I speak

In the nuclear-nation I want to speak
On disarmament. My flesh and bones will be watched
Is it legal, parliamentary rule?

How do you think
You’ll guillotine me, are you the armed, You Lord?

To night the birds had a celebration
I was given tit bits as invited guest
I become exalted with that prize
– I observed, I was frowned by those around me

In the acts of disarmament, why did I took up the acquaintance
with the birds
Why did I said, I want a green village surrounded by forests?

Love

Look, love does not follow rule of age
Like small and big locks it cling to the doors of age

Love come out quickly silently like a fugitive from the green nature
And take refuge in the locality; play morning and night
Breaks down all the happiness ands sorrow that built up with
the blessings of nature
Only the grimace of the old age are left.

Love, did not respect the age- and so
Prick in the sharp glowing golden knife in all hours
Play with the emperor’s heart like devastating deluge
Shatters down all family respect and emotions
And only remain enliven beautiful sceneries in the hearts.

3
Rainy Evening

Severely hungry, gruesome thirsty
The days pass in hunger. Burning days without any words
Who writes the stories of destitute people
Those that are written, are trifle, a very little.

Only one incidence enliven in my recent memory. Others are immaterial.
The ward sex in mother language is carnal desire
It became bellowing in the rainy evening.

Rumbling of cloud. Debauchery of water. In the veranda.

There are low and high pressure in nostalgia
When emotions amassed attachment prone evening
and night grow intense.

BIMAL GUHA

Repentance

I smeared so much black colour on my hands
That they can not be cleaned
The criminal hands peep behind the draped body
Misgivings engulf, but I still want to go far
Far more distance
If my homestead tremble with the frenzied cloud
I recite mystical verses of the Nature at the dawn
I have smeared so much hatred on my hands
That I could not stand erect with distinct vision
If the Sun is merciful, then
Cold sky of stupidity can be recovered in the mid-day
Of it really possible to stand erect, straightening the body
I have smeared so much colour – so much black
By rubbing the eyes they become red today
How can I clean this black colour from this ill-attire?
Here darkness means black horse
Here night means pasture of blind
How can I leap over – this great mountain of obstacle
With so little trifle egoism
How could I be placed in the human society?
I painted so much black colour on my hands
This dark colour can not be wiped out
Its hard to live on with so much repentance
If suddenly heavy shower galls down
If all the dark-colours of life and night is wiped out
If all the flags of religions fly with the winds of fraternity
Human Beings will turn true humans
Immense darkness shall be cleaned at last!

Exile

If the poet is exiled
The stability of the Nature is disrupted
Discoloured Earth filled yellow leaves
Is burned down to ashes by the scorching Sun
With great flames.
Smoke engulf green Nature
Like rusty nails of the fence
Banished persons turned ill-tempered
The words turn tuneless, trembling bosom
Is bundled up with great dark tiredness
Nature turned breathless

If the poet is sent into exile, in protest
Combines procession of sounds assemble in the street
Unrestrained words turn rowdy
Tear away al the existing rules and procedures
If the poet have to go on exile
He have to walk a long way as per Nature’s rule
As a tired traveler he rests under a banyan tree
Looks at the beauteous Nature with half closed eyes
Continuously. If the poet does not go to exile
Instantaneously, the Nature turns with newborn glee.

Rain-Children

At the last dawn, children of rain woke up the sleeping poet by tickling under his hands and feet. At the wink of the cloud they came down to the bosom of the Earth in timid steps serially. Naughty fleeing rain-dwarfs sprinkled droplets on the eyes of the sleeping poet. With striking cool touches they danced on the eye-lids.
At the last dawn, while looking at the dance of the cloud-peacocks, he recollected the memories of his childhood days. Stroking the rain-drenched fore-head, the poet saw they sat down on the bed as rain-droplets. They will not let the poet of Nature sleep. Behind her veils, the mother-rain was listening to the dialogues of her children’s soundless talks. As her eyes met with the poet, the whole figure of the mother-rain turned into wisps of mist and flew into the sky.
The poet stared towards the sky, with great amazement, he saw mother-rain and the rain-children are flying away hastily. After that, the poet scribbled down a glorified poem of wispy-rain with great pain in long white paper.
Our days are inviting the nights and our nights are provoking our days tickling continuously.

NASIR AHMED

Golden Fire

It’s such a long way that I can’t find in my dreams
Love! It’s so long extensive way I never thought of
Is this the solitude path made by you? or
Had I some lapses in my subconscious?
Like flowing rivulet you’ve went far beyond
From the soft embrace of present time
You’ve went away to such a distance
It’s beyond the dream
I’ve in my eyes all the tiredness of night
Haven’t I had all the signs of contemplation?
Why then we remain parted like broken bridge
Young desires have been senile, why?
If I don’t get you in my dreams
Then why should I call her damsel?
Love! O endless, unquenched golden fire
Let my dreams be brunt to ashes, like lovers
If burning makes perfection, make me beautiful then
So that I can tell, wherever love is
Let it remain in dreams and in reality
As if like a stupid thirst of a river
Flows towards its destination endless
If I can get her in my dreams
Let her be immortal in my deep anguish.

This is Love

When all on a sudden I meet you
In drought-laden wide world
Rain drops creates thirst and aspiration
One or two shy saplings open their petals
This is live.

Clouds are chained by cruel Chaitra
You walk across the vast wilderness of drought
We’ll meet tomorrow with the rain-laden cloud of hope
I keep my blind emotion treasured in my heart.

Days pass away painting deep water-coloured dreams
Night pass keeping awake under the rule of darkness
We’ll meet tomorrow. Desire lives like Shraban clouds
This is love.

Compassionate cloud, listen, this inexperienced farmer,
You know, how he is scorched to burn you
Burnt soil only enliven love for dense shower
With much apprehension, you must admit
You enter in his burnt-down heat once in a blue-moon
You offer your love like a life-long dreams.

What I didn’t said

What I didn’t said ever before
I couldn’t utter that even today
I tried to explain my inability
Whatever unspoken words remained
Pervading artworks like bruises and pains
You’ve sprinkled bitter taste of separation
Keep on giving those all the times
You didn’t made me happy
Not did you make the tree fruit-bearing
With all these complains I remained silent
I myself made all dreams come to an end.

SHIHAB SARKAR

Beside the Shrubs

Fragrance of life lies inside the bush
While walking past by the bush
I imagined I saw
Bunches of flowers bloom on the prehistoric creepers
Some insects still make sounds, the butterfly hover around
A flock of Moutusi chirp while flying
What a life in life and shade!

The shrubs means eternal peace
Beside the bush lies scented tissue, a book of poems
At the hint of men the women form a group
At the shrub there’s profound devotion.

The midday approaches, the noon turns into evening
And then darkness consumes the rays of Sun
And then the bush shiver at the roar of the monster
Rows of bushes, chains of death-cavity
The assassin jumps out of the shrubs
The open meadow turns out to be the gallows
The corpses lay scattered all over the places
A pair of glove lie beside the bush, and a blood-smeared dagger.

They All went Out

The scent can be felt in the wind
The breath has warmth, soliloquy in the uproar
Throwing flower-petals on the grave
The lost faces are seen on the faces of all the people.

Nobody will go away
We have in us all the extinguished people
Burning furiously, some remain diffused
The wind have scent of hairs, and of sweat.

Prominent sari hang from the balcony
Let it be there, unless it flies away
There’s open lipstick and nail-police on the dressing table,
Old lungi, under genji and fatua hang on the cloth-stand.

The went out in specific work or not
Shall return recently, lets wait in the drawing room
There’s uproar outside the room
Men went out, and shall return at the attraction of the people too.

MORSHED SHAFIUL HASAN

Happy People

Happy people speak of their happy lives
I listen to them with a smiling face
And there are long nights left,
for me to weep.
People cant also be happy
without letting others know.
But people in the end carry
the greatest agonies of their life,
All by themselves.

Time Lament

Life could have been so much different
if we had met five years ago,
Five years later
Our life is so different today.
Life could have been so much different
if we had met five years ago.
Five years from now
Life will be so very much the same.

Journey

I suppose the trains separate from here on,
We move towards our own separate destinations,
Still, we travelled a long road together,
Sitting face to face, it’s truly memorable.
And yet something is left behind,
In the end something always survives
— some daring memories,
their unruly flies shall return,
torment, (Certainly me, perhaps you too).
From here we have to switch to different trains,
The distant roads will be split from here on,
Still, we did come a long way together
Sitting face to face, its truly memorable.

AFROZA ADITI

Anger doesn’t suits you

Don’t be indignant
Don’t get angry
Anger doesn’t suits you

Soft serene attire
Snow-white affection
You’re the symbol of love and trust
You can’t get angry

Anger doesn’t suits you
Rivulets sprinkle in your eyes
Cataracts in your smile
Crushing sounds of spring leaves in your heart
Anger doesn’t suit you

Stars twinkle on your fingers
Moonbeam on your palms
Love songs are heard at your touch
Anger doesn’t suit you.

Delay

I was late
The train left me
I’m alone on the empty platform
Twelfth-day moon has set
Under cloudy sky moon couldn’t be seen

I was late
The Ferry left the wharf
Alone I gaze at the sporty waves
Exhausted and at day’s end
Night falls, darkness covers the earth

I was late
The train left me
I stood alone on the empty platform.

Fugitive Mind

That mind is absent
So that I’ll see the Spring
Unparallel, by sitting beside you
For a few moments.

It is dark time now
No time to spare
For other.

Now its storm in the garden of senses
To speak to you
Haven’t you seen the
Blood-coloured hibiscus
In the heart of roses.

SARAH BANU SUCHI

Desire

If I were Radha and you be Krishna
I wish I should adorn you with a garland

I would beat you to my desire, though I myself get tortured
Still I’d nor leave you, look how I take you to my bosom

If I hide you in the mangrove forest
People all around could not find you

If you are a flamboyant -feathered cock,
et me be a dumb chicken and would eat up your heart

Lets go to the deep dark sea
So that I can jump to it with you with me.

NITAI SEN

Decline

After calling you time and again I went back.
I went back with empty hands empty hearts
into disappointment and deception.
The door that was avowedly to keep open all life
was shut by some clever design
not in monsoon but in the very spring.
The flowers that were to bloom in the dawn of the day
the buds have wilted in the drought in after-sunset darkness
Putting out all my dreams and starlight with both hands
Must you depart in search of new warmth?
Even after twelve years today, Purobi, I went back
After calling you anew, nursing blue poison in my heart.
The body, the earth and the sky are shaking with lust
but you’re still unmoved with your unfailing arch looks.
This is a call of the blood that none can deny.

A Curse and a melody

Give me a seed
and a song that can rouse
the hidden power inside that seed
or a poem of equal force.
Give me a curse and a melody to rouse the hatred
hidden within pride or a rhythm of equal force.
If you will give me nothing then why did you give me to eat
the forbidden fruit?
Why emptiness stalks my adolescence.
Why do I see with dazed eyes
the enchanting river of despair.
If you will give nothing
then why this false hope hide and seek, misgiving.

History of Tomorrow

Time goes on like waves
Life is but a Blue-eyed river
Ancient festivity is in the crop fields
Speechless, emotionless under crushing of machines
Smell of gunpowder mingles with the wind of evening-prayer
In my scenes I feel rain-drops
Un-wavering mind now dwindle into doubt
Tomorrow’s history is very crude
Tomorrow’s history is blood-strewn.

MAINUDDIN KAZAL

Within the River

You are another river within the river
My dear water of Jamuna, speedy desire
In your hurries breath
My future in written.

You are complete secrecy of my desire
Ocean, fire, forest and watery bodies
You remain in my existence of loving emotion
There’s no one to listen your happiness and pains

One day the age will grow and this body will finish
Nobody will take me close if my youth is gone
I’ll remain awake at your disaster and crisis
I’ll be only with you all the times

HASAN HAFIZ

Human beings do not know

Memory-honey is overflowing
They do not want to
Be imprisoned in the pot
With the desire of the wings
They are praying to God
Bend down unconditional
Are the memories fly?
Or moisten pollen
Petals plunge down
Being a fountain of fragrance
There remain some poison too
Follows the life
And were successful.

Childhood days of hallucination
Kites of recollection fly in the sky
And went on flying
And disappear somewhere
From here to eternity
Human beings do not know.

Proximity but in infinite distance

I’m inside the cave, you’re inside the cave too,
Me and you, you and me, both of us
A pair of a man and a woman
We are not pigeons or any other bird
We are together, none the less separated, detached.
Archaeological dust fly inside our memory.

We are inside the cave, after
Bathing full in the primitive crafty liability
Wake up, teeth of primitive hunger implant
Prints of secret spotted scars on our body
We are not at all aware of
These secret signs.

We are closer to each other, can touch if we can
Sometimes like straight lines, in coupling signal
In pursuit of dreamy desire we implant
Touching each other we soften up
Even then there remain an infinite distance untouched
The stars remain awake in faraway universe.

Win it Own it

Unfasten
All the smoke and sprouts of your heart
Let those blend with the airstream s

Spread out the ashes with both of your hands
Cover up
The remains of deceased dreams
With great emotional care
Then try to root out for good
The seeds of severe memories
And all its undergrowths.

Are you anxious? Can’t you do that?
You have to do it.
If not, how could you go further?
Half of your life remain
Unexploited in solitude
Waiting for you, burning down
All the happiness of your life
As the flaming incense sticks of life.

MOSHARRAF HOSSAIN BHUYAN

Morning of Sunlight

There were petals of Raktajaba in your eyes
And the streams of blood all through your heart
When you picked up the pen in your hand
Entire sky filled up with stars

There were trees of Raktajaba in your bosom
And red and green tapestry all over your body
When you used to talk in your dreams
The words used to rush through the meadows.

You had morning of Sunlight on your face
The moonbeam used to swim in your bosom
When you used to talk in your dreams
The words used to turn into melodies.

One of your hand turned into a fist
You raised the fist with index finger raise
You used to speak in glowing voice
The words used to wake us up as dreams.

Of Flowers and New Grain

The branches of Bakul has bowed down with the weight of its fruits
One or two Bakul flowers are dropping down from the
concealment of the leaves
Sheuli flowers are strewn all over under the tree
The Goddess Durga has left the Earth a few days ago
A lean-bodied beggar is crying from the corner of the courtyard
O Mother, give me a fistful of food, I feel terrible hunger

With the end of Nabanna comes the Winter
Shimul, Palash and Mahananda flowers are all sprightly
A naked beggar is crying from the corner of the courtyard
O Mother, give me a piece of cloth, I feel terribly cold.

The Shark

The sky and the sea do not talk at the same time
Whether the water of the sea is lost in premature drought?
Is the crowd of the people is crushed down? and
was bowed down to earth?
Or the fiery melody of the waters of Padma, Meghna and
Jamuna were stopped?
After looking at the shoals of gluttonous sharks.

Did they forgot the bloody verses of Fifty-two
Or the paintings of fifty-nine have become a part of history
And wasn’t there a single person
with weapons in hand to gag out the eyes
of the fierce hyena’s of Seventy-one?

Those avenues, that ocean, those people are still present
The stars and the sky still gaze at the faces of that crowd
But those people do not rise today and do not fly flags of courage
Those greedy sharks devour what-ever left over there
are in the community

When the asexuality of the human beings breaks apart
The human ocean will dance in the wrath of Sidor and Ayla.
Then the sharks will find no way to escape
But will not be spared
Such precedence can be seen in Seventy-one
When again another Seventy-one will come
To the people as courage?

SHAHABUDDIN NAGARI

Proximity of Love

I was inside you, you within me
Who could then a lifeless desert grew up?
Wind was inside my bosom, eyes were fixed on the sky
Nobody of us thought, what went on, what the people saw

The heart was immersed on the cold water, like divers
The tree-figures leaned forward their head in warm air
Moonbeam noon crouched on your palm
I was then swimming on the muddy water of love.

Your footprints can be seen, mud moved a little
I was searching through my past activities
Liquid cerulean soreness drops down on my lips
Do sunflowers bloom on your eyes

Wide sky opens up its door and processions of stars come down
Cool wind wipe out the variance between you and me
In the mid-night I spread my hand and kept touching you
Everybody leans down before such type of love.

Life Story

Little by little I took you
To the entrance of life.
I have to return back now
The other side of the door in the colourful world laughs the wide open sky
Fragmented moons were floating on the
Sculpture decorated avenues and chronoscopic shopping mall
The seasonal flowers from the digital display spreads their hands
And pick up happy galaxies
Fragrances of the body spreads all over the place in the air
Under the palms flowery garden grows up
The mid-day is saturated with satisfaction of fluids of copulation

I with my own hands opened this giant artistic
Gate of life
Go now
Mingle with this colourful elegant shade of the foliage
Take up contentment of existence from life
Take up water from the stony walls
Pull away germinated seeds of sufferings from inside your body
Be happy!
I have to return back now
Into the darkness behind
Looking at the eclipse of the moonlight
I’ll fly into the devastating wind like minute bits of sand.

Mysterious Relation

Sometimes close relation grow up with some persons
Some relation breaks up without any cause
There was game of love linked for many long time with cloud
Suddenly snapped up by gush of wind and rain
Kodom bloom rock with deep breath, Oh!
Once in a wide field I played ha-do-do with the moonbeam
Now under the white moonlight rivals wait for me with open sword
Keeps the dark alley on guard, and thus I have to cut all relation
With the moonlight without any cause

But what a surprise, venom flows down my feet after churning
Filthy hands of the prostitutes drags me to the abyss of Nilgiri
They thrush in my mouth all the devastated affluence as high as mountain
Chocked pond move with great upheaval, walls of faith shatters down
Kissing birds sits on my senseless shoulder
The body which has been ignored greatly for so many years
Know not why, I feel pity for this,
Whole night my emaciated hand lay lifeless on the wrinkled skin
Like a dried out leaf of tree, Oh!
Virgin girl gave birth to a fetus at her own will
Bull cultivates her fallow land causelessly.

DILARA HAFIZ

In The Vast Fields Of A Distant Land

Water burning within the water,
water pays no heed to what restricts her.
The shore and sandy wastes surge up and down;
how does the marsh—grass flower bloom?

On Sagardighi’s long expanse
clouds and absentminded breezes dance.
On the sandy banks at the hour of dusk
fall shadows of the distant past.

In the water of his memory,
the child, forgetful,
can’t remember the multiplication table.
In the vast fields of a country far
I don’t know what he’s looking for.

Mira’s Hymn

Like a lame beggar I have stretched out my hands towards you;
you keep holding on with two hands to an empty cup. See.
If I haven’t reached out with both my hands again and again
towards even greater emptiness?
With a lame beggar’s expectation lye stretched out my hands
only towards you —
As if in exchange for a nickel may be or a dime! —
To you I can give the golden key of the mansion of dreams
hidden very close to my heart.

Like a lame beggar I’ve gone on stretching out my hands
in your direction—
Motionless as matter, I am that blind beggar
When I can’t make out any features
In the abyss of night! still then
I keep my hands stretched out towards you
In silent dedication.

Your songs of praise, your hymns
suffused through my body, fill my whole being:
I’ve kept my hands stretched out
only towards you, a golden conflagration in my heart—
a thirsty craving heat in my lips,
I’ve kept an unquenchable fire burning—
Waiting for you, I’ve kept a midnight vigil and
heard the distant resonance of the Sarod
A pure memento— why does this distress, these wounded feelings,
pull me toward sorrows tryst ?

Who knows how far away and where the distance is —
the virgin days and nights are indolent, unconcerned!
Who knows when, how long ago you hoisted
over my sampan your victory flag…
You’re still immersed in the depths of wine;
haven’t you quenched your thirst ?— Now come,
finish your bathing in my gentle spirits—
I’ve captured Mira’s ardor in my being.
Like a blind beggar ceaselessly
I’ve kept on stretching out,
stretching out my hands.

Notes : Mirabai was a Rajput princess of the 16th century. who became a fervent devotee of the god Krishna and composed hundreds of kirtan- hymns of praise to him, many of which are still performed by Indian classical singers today.
The ‘unquenchable fire’ of stanza four is Raban-Cita in Bengali, the eternal fire in which the demon Ravana, anti-hero of the epic Ramayana, burns after his death in battle with the hero Rama.

IQBAL AZIZ

What Is This Life That I Have Chosen

I see no other path beyond this, in the dark
As I trek down the path, it appears a long way off.
What is this life that I have chosen biting chill
Caught up in Krishnachura, the route-march of the kings men
My name I haven’t enrolled yet, O Lord!
Colourful classrooms of Politics and Sociology,
here there and everywhere
I look at my Shadow- ditto of a corpses.
Rebirth, reawakening everyday every night
Poets, poems, ideologies and men arise
from the company of the dead like primeval gods
next to the heavenly skies.
I play with a toy hut
Beggars shout in unison, the secret heart of
powers speaks in whispers:
Lord, what is this life that I have chosen?
My fathers bones lie deep inside the grave,
What is this land that I have chosen
As I patch up the strings of shattered nostalgia so untimely
The barren touch of age on the night the whores body—
white splotches float matchless in the silvery moon.
I go by in a trance past Arambagh and Fakirapool
Libya and Tunisia: I know I have no death,
never life, I have neither, I know, as I walk on
towards the equator
What life is this that I have chosen?
Baudelaire and Jibanananda had in my boyhood days
whispered a call
Like two innocent adolescents, and since the down
the Padma, Meghana, Jamuna
After an endless rivers trek there’s now the swing
of a deep dark nights touch on Krisnachura.
This is my life in my palm have I covered
the dark and
the star of a town night, timeless adamantine
beacons everyday
beauties in hundreds flare up on light posts.
I only walk my path, mumble in my own painful
nights with human nature, I know not the
destination of this life.
What life is this like yellowed nightmares that
I have chosen?
Release me Lord, grant me reprieve
My whole body in feverish, I can not walk my path
Release me Lord, I beg you
on my knees.
My feet and my head to you are bowed
So also my grave-toe
What is this life that I have chosen?
Searching for the meaning of another life,

Metamorphosis

Every moment I am changing
and my body is casting off its old composition,
Shall I be metamorphosed into a giant spider?
Or a dog— wandering dog?
Every moment the pigeons of memory are evading
from the heart and flying towards Bokulpur.
I am lying low in the prison of misery.
1 perceive a gusty wind lamenting at a distance.
With its hands and eyes beckoning me day and night,
I am altering, changing all the time
After wandering like an African lion
I return home in the afternoon alone, like a rat.
I talk about all the negotiating formulas, that there are.
To the ruling monarch I submit with clasped hands.
Where is my revolutionary passion today,
where is it wasting away.
I am changing every moment
into vermin, dog, pariah dog
Can I become a human in this life?

JAHANGIR FIROZ

Feelings and Belief

I haven’t seen you
Your appearance moves before me like a pendulum
Still it came to a halt in feelings and belief
I’m not that type of mason
Who measure firm belief keeping thread on the body and mind with the compactness of reliance.

I haven’t seen you
Still I feel you are staying in me
Your emptiness engulf me
I remain motionless in irrational belief, restless in love
You hang around with me always
I suffer.

White Altair of Evening

The evening still has morning fragrance of Jui
Then there is nightly Hasnuhena. And now
Burns with the scents of fire and beauty
Alone ! absolutely burning alone in flames.

Though own beauty of fire is devastating
The evening beauty was in flames; still
It exposes in the serenity of dawn and night Jui
Fragrance of Bakul emanate all over
Fire spreads in the debris of the family

Last evening she looked like night
Her eyes were immobile and composed
Was inert, like a lake with the depth of agony
A single morning flower in the evening
And a single fiery crimson Jaba like fire
Is burning with rising flames of fire
There lies the womanly figure of evening
And mingle at ease with the beauty of evening
And the evening gradually turns into dark night
Still a single light burns placidly in the darkened family.

ZAHID HAIDER

I Only Raised My Hand

I only raised my hand in the emptiness,
The sky shouted
The clouds darkened the earth
With their steamy demonstration.
The radio, the TV and BSS journalists
Kept talking only about
My raising the hand.
Other news media from around the globe
Sent their correspondents,
And the soldiers aimed their tank muzzles at me.
The politicians became worried
For whom is this hand raised?
The economists sat in an urgent meeting
How much budget should have to be spent
To pull this hand down ?
The sociologist called a seminar
What percentage of the society
Will be confused, seeing this raised hand ?
Everyone asked himself.
Why had the man raised his hand?
Does the hand grasping something?
If it does,
What is written on it ?
Is there any other hand behind his ?
Not against any man,
But I only raised my hand
Waking up from sleep
Yawning, to bring back the circulation.

I Am Not The Last Man

You are the last one to come.
Tell me, what did you see?

No, I am not the last man.
There was one behind me,
Far, far behind me.
Another man.

No, no, you’ve been the last man.
Tell me, what did you see?

It was morning, a wonderful morning
And birds rose from their sleep, too.
Rain came down to the perched land
Arid I heard the voice of man.

You are lying.
Didn’t you see war in the name of peace?
The exultation of destroying green woodlands ?

I’ve seen fountains
Free flowing fountains
And a bunch of happy wings flying in the sky.
You wait,

There is another man coming
I am not the last one.

Superfluous Man

I am a bloody superfluous man.
Wherever I go
I become an extra.
Men gaze around with silent sullen eyes
Then my two eyes
Then my two feet
Then my two hands
And even my heart goes unsuitable
In that meeting place.
As if it is a poor street dog
Which has shed all it’s fur,
Foodless for days,
Suddenly in a dazzling super banquet
Or a dazzling ball room
Or in a posh office down town.
I am a bloody superfluous man.
Hospitals run out of beds when I go there.
The pavement is no more kind.
Jostling me down with pedestrians.
Shoulders to the ground
And latest model cars scream to the sky
With latest jazzy horns.
News floats around
I am an extra man
A superfluous man.
It’s only you
Who is pushing us
To the camps of the Third World
In the assemble of the World itself.
Just for you
We have to listen
To some extra superfluous words.
I am a superfluous man
I am an extra man.
O motherland,
Superfluous and extra to you, too?

MOHON RAIHAN

Laughter

Some laughter are like swords
They pierce through some hearts
Nobody can see that hidden bleeding
It bleeds unnoticed, incessantly.

In the festive mood of fullness of heart
Songs, conversation or even poems
When passes from one heart to another
Brilliant spring of laughter bursts out from nowhere.

Even in some hearts lamentation plays on
Rings on in solitude
Some more ripples of laughter
Like rolling waves of stormy ocean
Stirs onto the indignant heart of human beings.

I am well like Sorrow

I am well, very well indeed, like sorrow, like love
Like those who love green birds, trees, the blue sky,
Who love rivers, water, flowers, women,
Like them I am well, very well indeed.

You’ve never listened carefully to birds’ cry, If you had,
You would surely have heard my cries too.
If you’d loved trees you’d have sought my serenity,
If you had loved flowers and women
You would surely have loved me, too
And would not have turned opportunist.
I’m your enemy. Keep away and never come near me.
Don’t step on my shadow even,
Don’t raise your eyes and look at me,
Only hate me thoroughly and
Rest assured that I would never ask you to love me.
I love flowers, birds, trees, river, water, women,
Love, sky and the hills;
I have joined myself with them on the streets,
In the woods, fields and factories.

Love

I know what woman is,
I know what love is,
I have smelt many flowers,
But I never belonged to anyone
Only the love of people has brought me
Out into these streets.

Whenever the people have taken to the streets
In famine and in epidemics,
And rent the hostile air with slogans;
Whenever the country has seen wars, deaths, struggles.
I have always come out to stand beside my people.

I know what love is
All my love is dispersed among the masses.

My love is now scattered among crop fields, rivers,
In the air, and throughout the soil of the country.
I declare to you that my love will conquer all.
I have learnt what love is
From you.

GOLAM KIBRIA PINU

Disaster

Cotton is soaking down
I am also soaking down in disaster
Terrible disaster
Whole of my body in drenched with water

So I can not sin on
A low stool
I can not stand in the court of sun rays

I don’t have small towel
I can not wipe out my disaster with both of my hands
Shall my anxiety diminish in herbal medicine?

Moonlit Monolith

I gaze with unscrambling eyes
At you drenched in rain
Not with apathetic eyes
With two eyes full of affection
I gaze at you concealed, secretly
In flash, with an wink\At total silence

Though I feel thrill and affection
Still I remain silence
And loose the strength of exposure
My beloved words remain speechless
And have palpitation
Painful
And thus I transform
Into moonlit monolith.

Flood 1405

The water reached up to the courtyard
And then as a devouring shark
Entered into the room
In the cropland
The water stood still, the water didn’t move for a long time.

Dejection remain awake in pains and trouble
The Crows flew away very far
The trees didn’t live
I hid behind the settlement.

In eyes, ears, nose, tongue, membrane and mind
The water hits
Still thirst to live didn’t diminish
This is called knowledge- winning against breast-dip water.

SARKER MAHBUB

Looking at my red eyes

Looking at my reddish eyes
You positively knew
That I didn’t sleep last night
As if a patient of Conjunctivitis
Any once can conclude looking at
My reddish eyes.

Whole night. Entire night
Long single night
As if
A night of disaster
Didn’t let me sleep a blink
An Anopheles
May be a mail-train of Malaria
Cried roaming on my breast whole night
You may have realized
Looking at my red eyes.

From its wings ne can hear
The lamentation
Of the ocean
Of Kuakata, Sandwip, Hatia and Bhola
All around a five-foot dam like a mosquito-net
Still many lamentation can be heard through
The holes around
You may have realized
Looking at my red eyes,
I didn’t have sleep whole night.

I want to sleep

I want to sleep
In the lonely midday
Intoxicating afternoon
And in Sylvan night.

Big boss reclines his contented body
Effortlessly in busy golden lunchtime
White-clad guard of the bank
Drowses sitting on a tool.
Tired driver of rickshaw
Cunning anglers of the shoal of Padma
Rabindra song stops on the lips of unrestrained singer
‘Aankhi hote ghom nilo hari……’

Sometimes hastily runs fast
Policeman of the city
Exited Fire Brigade.
At dead of night
The nurse drowses beside the dying patient
Carefully keeps loving blue envelope
Lies tired body
Invisible peon of ether
Even sleeps.
Golden lights of the room gradually turns blue
Tired, weary body
A damsel takes away sleep from my eyes
Like Banalata Sen
Sleeps on
At Natore

I want to sleep
In the lonely midday, intoxicating afternoon, and in the Sylvan night.

Beloved

Your love
Is like a warm jacket on my body
While touching your body
An electronic rocket flies high

Your love
Is like thousand lamp
Your love in my heart
Is like a small slip of the ration shop.

MUMAMMAD SAMAD

Aruna, You are Aruna

Aruna, Beli flowers are very favourite to your poet
You adore your ears with Beli
Millions of children bloom.
Kalabati are very favourite to your poet
If you come before him as bride
The soft Kalabati bows down in the early morning.

Aruna, Roses are very favourite to your poet
You adore your bun and shout at the Shaheed Minar
Innumerable stars drop down to earth.
Birds and all the wild flowers are favourite to your poet
You’ll wear a sari of green flowers and sprinkle Karabi and skate to
Fragrant night descend in the open Sunshine
The royal gate of Amarabati opens up!

Aruna, – You are the favourite flowers, birds, fragrant nights and Amarabati.

If you break down the temple of Love

If you break down the temple of love

Nobody will stare at that soft-tender blushing face
Blood will be sucked-up from the depth of navel
Five fingers will not be playful in the forest of dense hair

Somebody will find the scent of flesh sucking the tits
Teeth of steel will gnaw up the whole body
Tender hands will not be stretched in search of heart.

Why the Sea-gulls cry

You can smell
From about twelve hundred mile away
Flowers of spasm are blooming.
You are anxious, restless,
Dark hairs break apart,
You are returning back.

In your emerald face and d tear-filled eyes
Cyclone build up- I am running away
Alone, miserable.
You are moving away like the water of deluge
with the suction of ebb-tide of ocean
Quick-sand is devouring the great poet
Southern Bengal is devastating down
With ruthless storm
I couldn’t stand up
You are leaving me
Like this
Alone.

A tender sea-gull burst into a shrill-cry again and again.
Stupid, innocent is she, this sea-gull above my head
Why does the sea-gull cry- I’m not her kin
Still the sea-gull cry-
Why does she cry?

FARID AHMED DULAL

Unaccepted Poem

Accepted drowned poem is waiting patiently beside the door
for your touch
Two stanzas are pacing up and down in the corridor expecting your kiss
Suddenly when the wind touches, the doors of dreamy cloud
open up abruptly
As the rain leaves the regality of the cloud and pours down to soil
After long disappearance when you embrace me close
And cast your doe-like loving eyes
Dazzling stanza of life at last comes close to enchanting embrace

Entire winter our cropland remain waiting
On the village path dew-drenched grasses wait for timid dawn
The revolting meadow wait at the crowded pier
in the shade-covered afternoon
When you come and smile, the figure of speeches walk away
Accepted poems weep at the adobe of the poet desiring your touch.

KHALID AHSAN

Imagery Word-Embryo Hunted The Boy

Before the water, dirt, mud and stone-cave
Four water-worn women walk past silently
Touching the sheet of dream
Oyster opens its lip, covering dream and energy
They have adorn their hands with Rakhi of sun-beam.
Moon, the out-witted moon
Drowning in the dark water behind the
Ever-smiling Earth..

And in this precious night
The Full-Year, I will not kick you down
But for this day only
Keep thy sword in the cap.

Hesitation and fear move as pendulum
I am in fear of missing your love
It is better to keep open the door of the city
And having the kindle flow of your nostril
I will endow my sleep with sweet-dream.

You are the Oyster-nymph, I call out with love
The twigs are falling down your bosom
And lights from your eyes like waves
O damsel, you’re sightless and hypnotized
If one or two star drop from the sky unnoticed
Do not let me wake unnoticed
In distant if the ship whistle,
Do not awake my world.
I am severely enchanted, in the word-embryo
Of the majesty of imagery
Come serenely my love.
Let’s sit elsewhere
And share the travelogues
Oh dearest come;
Let us dance with the feeling
In the ball room of sand-dunes.

Besieged, What The Think-Machine Speaks

A little freeze lies beside our hearts.
We put on the cold light in the birthday evening
We, the cool men crowd in the freezer room.
We exchange gifts of cold fish without gills among ourselves
The internal vacuum pierce through and through
Like the barrels of gun.

The black and maroon reptile wriggle
In our abdomen.
Aquarium vanishes from our brains
The long-lasting spool, diminishing alphabets, only the melody

Aquarium was filled with transparent, blue and green water
Our lively dreams travel
Perhaps one of the astronauts removed it to
another planet.

Now we embrace each other in every ceremony
With dirty nails, pinching in the back,
We take out fertile pus from the shoulder
and exchange each other with delight.

In the history of the world
The fertile silt stratify in the river basin
Twenty five years lost fruitless from our memory
The large purulent matter grab the little ones
The people of the country crawl in the ocean of the pus,
With a placard of the unplanned future in hand.

KAMAL CHOWDHURY

Racing On

Racing on, only racing on like this
as the clouds roar;
Terrorised pedestrians on the road
the vendors on the footpath,
Pale clerks returning from office
workers toiling from dawn to dusk,
All races on.
The clouds roar
on the north, south, east and west,
the stormy gale hits the dusty earth.
Black clouds hover above the head,
there are shouts and screams all around,
the dreams are all shattered.
The feet clash with each other,
people in the procession run
As if behind lurks an assassin
ready to pounce with a gun. They retire to their abode
the terrorised men return home;
Footsteps are heard in the chest
and hammers pound the heart,
some people return, some never
Racing on, only racing on like this
as the clouds roar.

Of Starving Men

When night becomes animated
With the fragrance of flowers,
All lovers— kings of the earth
Crowd the rose garden,
the enchanted petals awake
With the amorous whisperings of couples
I’m exhausted with thirst
Go on searching for water frantically
In every nook and cranny of my mother land,
I keep screaming helplessly
Pressing a stone against my hungry stomach
Therefore, love for flowers has no place in my heart.
I certainly am not indebted to flowers,
How much of these flowers or flower-lovers
Matter to a starving Man?
All these worshipping of beauty?
Skillful arts of poesy?
Intoxicating love-gossiping ?
I find no meaning in them.
I want food, only food
I want liquid love to quench my thirst;
me all edibles resemble flowers,
I get fragrance of love out of them
That’s why I keep awake day and night.
I want food to stay alive
I want a land with vast expanse of waters,
I’m a sleepless hungry man of this century,
A brother of the unfortunate ones
Living in remote villages
Bruised by hunger and poverty.
O, brothers —
Extend your affection to me,
Give me enough strength
So that my muscles can fight hunger
Only then will the flowery nights be mine.

ASAD MANNAN

She who loves me

Did the Moonbeam climbed the hills tying new moon on its hair
Fountains of silver burst down the silvery breasts
Who will make her lie on the bed of clouds naked
She, who loves me, made me pauper with love
I have thought many a times about that scene
The girl is lonely in the night devoid of love and kiss,
The boy is the exclusive king beside the bank of river
The moonlight of heart is hidden by stone-mist

I touched fire many a times by loving the stranger
I fly away in primitive intoxication being drowned in booze
All the animals- creation in intoxicated in that drunkenness
I stay on the peak of aspiration intoxicated
She will plant millions of kisses on my desiring lips
The girl does not wake up, thinking her friend he lover.

So many Mouths are ready

So many mouths are ready to be kissed; whom shall I kiss,
I do not call it a kiss, if the kiss does not have fire in it.
Those who have hidden desert in the body of naked river
No matter if they swim in the river
With roses in their hands
I can not call then lovers.

I pass my days on the banks of the river
I pass my nights on the illicit beds of the city
The churning body of Radha have excessive thirst
Still there’s no storm on the lips of the roses of Brindaban

The love is kindled with the fire of aspiration
I touched in the mist
Why did you went to sleep making me awake?

You’re ever-naked in Asharh

When you involve yourself whole night in infidel acts through cell-phone
In deep sexual desire you went on talking incessantly
How at the shoal of Padma grow up the settlement of aspiration
The cunning beacon of the overnight jackal stare with awe

The barren soil of the Varendra slowly opens up the slit of uterus
The Santal damsel of Nachol collects fire on her aanchal
With the pervading fragrance of incessant rain she develop the colour of spotted deer
The youthful from cries up in the depth of dark night

Why new desires kindle up again! I walk nude untimely
Is love flows in the invisible veins of nature, like blood
How much barren a heart could be to become a heart of a lover?
It is unfair to love much more than it is really necessary

In Asharh, you lay naked whole night under the Tamal tree
Let the poet lie on the pillow of cloud and float on the funeral pyre of love.

MAHMUD KAMAL

A Stoppage

Where I’m standing now at this late afternoon
I didn’t had any intention to come
My destination was far, more remote
Then why did I come here?
I carriage I am travelling on
I was not been boarded by force or in error
Or made me come down here by trick
At the terminal stage of life
Keeping the crisis and rhyme side by side
Guarding the freedom of logic
I falter
Erroneously peeps a new theory
At last I came to the junction
A self-imposter is standing behind the station
I brought crisis and rhyme in such a juncture
It is thus call a stoppage.

Tiger Eye Or Deer

If you enter the circle the tiger will eat you up
Outside the ring there is playful deer
You can speak opposite to it
If you go out of the circle the tiger will eat you up
And inside the ring there is playful deer
In the movement of power and prowess
In your eyes tiger and deer
When come closer
Retrogression drives away the loveliness
Those eyes are killer of magnificence
Those eyes do not believe in circle
So sometimes there’s tiger and deer on the other.

Parents are Trees

If blood counts for father
Then it is not correctly measured
The young leave of loveliness is dead
That form is open

The bone and marrow breaks apart
Difference is miles apart

If Sun rises slowly
Then moon remains lovable

Still moon, in its subjugation
Tears apart itself gradually

If blood is the root of father
Light and shade turns surprising

Flowers and fruits abound in the trees
Identity thus is explanatory

Trees do not have fathers and mothers
Trees are parents of their own.

SAIFULLAH MAHMUD DULAL

Some Trifle Bunches of Thoughts

28.10.11
The Australian birds were intoxicated by eating fruits of the forest
The moon over New Zealand also opened up its bank-pervading moonlight by loosing in itself in joy
The sweeper-colony becomes drunk in moonlight, the employees of tea-garden, officers, Saudi Arab . . . .
The police walks like toddlers, the winds dwindle, the wild wind drops into sleep alone at the intoxicating smell of wild flowers
The intoxicated Sea-fishes forgets their art of swimming, own self
#
In this wild inebriated intoxicated world of tumultuous ‘Drink Day’ lets go out and let go to steal.

28.10.11
The drunker told to a lunatic, You drunker
And lunatic called, you are lunatic.
#
But both of them knows how to love.

31.10.11
The leaves are more beautiful than flowers
The beauties of the deserts of the Middle East, the beauties of snow-covered winters
Reminds us that the earth is devoid of leaves like widows.
#
Not only the herbivorous, the human beings too eat vegetables
Love to eat vegetables.
Did the human beings have any relations with leaves?
25.12.11
I could not come out of the nature of loosing things.
#
Lost papers and pens in the class
Umbrella in the rainy season
. . . After loosing many a things I became a loosing-chap
In the boyhood days I lost glasses and keys, purses, pass of the bus, even you.
I lost gloves, passwords.
I didn’t get anything back. But the list of loosing went on growing.
The way lost-memory group-deserted timid bird looses the route and shiver in fever. I too loosing the key of travel passport and went to sleep in Switzerland. I lost the stairs of dream in my sleep, any a times I lost lines of poetry. I never found myself in Lost and Found office.
#
The story of loosing handkerchief is really interesting. I lost the river and sold the boat without money and returned to station empty handed
And I sang the song of by-gone days by loosing the train, forgetting the melody and music in my free voice.
#
Loosing the paternal language, loosing the path
King loosing his kingdom, take refuse in woodcutters house.
I do not have a place to take rest
I lost my amulet while dipping in the lake
Today I lost myself and turned pauper I returned home empty handed and saw . . .

ASLAM SANY

Dream

I’ll keep all my dreams
In your custody
Will you please wipe away all the dusts
That will spread all over it.

Keep it under your vigilance
And touch that with your heart,
The twinkling stars of faraway sky
Will peep into it again and again.

If you feel happy looking at those dreams
You’ll become happy
Your life will be fortunate,
Your dreams will come true.

Progressive Life

Kariman, a damsel from remote village
Even though, dose she understands less?
She can’t speak out, that’s the problem.

The fellow from the city shall talk lousy to her
And shall she remain speechless?
‘Hey man, what’s wrong to be woman?
Isn’t they human beings, don’t they have strength?’

‘Can all you work like a strong man?’

‘They eat rice, what do ye think, we eat grass?-
Why can’t we work like that?
Give me a spade, and see this time.’

Saying so Kariman starts to dig out the earth, construct roads,
burrow ditches, develop dreams, build the country.

O Damsel, You Didn’t Come

You didn’t come in the evening, O damsel,
The afternoon was very bright
Migratory birds gathered beside the lake
Your face was very pale
Water remained unmoved,
But I didn’t found anybody like you.

Why are you busy in the library, O damsel?
What are you writing on your note.
Scribbling unmindfully on it
Still, the winter birds came flying
Passing frame of mist
But, O girl you didn’t come in this hour.

Taking tired nicotine of night
How gloomy I pass my time
Keeping poetry book blank, I doze.
My dreams are all scattered,
Time pass like snail, unregistered
I came near the lake crushing shells of nuts
With both of my feet
O girl, you didn’t come,
And night never come too
It remained still where it was.

WALI KIRON

Bird Village

In the snow
The penguins brood
They are humans, but they are not humans either
They are social birds
The walk like humans, but
They lived ever after in the snow
Their family, wives and children are enwrapped with snow
The women pours snows over their heads
They pass their days extremely tiring. . . .
They keep their money under the snow
So they are not with the revolution
They are not in poems either
Their prosaic lives can not go far walking hesitant.
They live on in the bird village
Keeping snow in their head-rest
They sleep on the snow.

Time

Many a times ballads of valiancy were enacted
The bird of the bosom now speak of time
In some space of timeless density
Emerges the nothingness- lumps of emptiness condensates
May be like this Time takes its shape
And our pictorial fancy grows
When the stone crashes the sound and light emerge
Drops of bubbles and sweat of Time
Countless moving images, still its not that
The envelope of Time turns out to be the pea-nut shell
We cracks then and eat
And blow away the empty shells

We attract the stars by copulation
The emptiness condenses in our wombs
A lump of pictorial fantasy are surrendered at the wink of Time
The trapped Space and Time weep
Machu Picchu of the Incas and Pundranagar surrendered
Surrenders the deity of Eyra island
The Time itself swing
In the hand of Odysseus

There are so many events of heroic acts
The bird of bosom now writes now the ballad of Time.

Noisiness of the Late Afternoon

Ashen late afternoon of Ashadh
The houses has opened up their hearts
The doors are ajar, the damsels come out
The birds make noises in the alleyway
The houses remain expectant like guardians
For their return
The doors are like spectators, silent sentinels
The madhabilatas are waiting with bouquets in hand for their reception
The alleys spread their hands, open up their bosom,
The alleys laugh exultingly
Gazing at the charms of noisiness of youthfulness
For the last time before the coming of the dark night

ASHRAFUL MOSADDEQ

Unkind April

You left me and I had nothing to keep
I only vomited all my sorrows in the bathroom

I am staying here and you’re at your house
I had nothing to do and say anything
May be you have some desire, but I need you
Kindly dispense me, Baby, like an ice cream.

I have lost my se3nces and my soul in April
I can not sleep during the nights

I can not swallow only my finger
I’ve kept that desire into my bosom
I am ironing with Elizabeth Arden.

At this non-fragrant coming of dawn
A sharp kitchen-knife has become prepared
To make thin slice on my breakfast table.

‘Naught’ has sprouted from nothingness to full bloom
Impossibility – April is as cruel as you are.

Love

Someday I’ll certainly touch your hand
In the open street, whether in daytime or night
If the Spring comes, this is my promise
There’s no minuscule of fear in my mind.

I’ll tell you honestly that I love you
Come of damsel, keep your hand on this bosom

I love you. But why a tiniest fear walks past in my mind
Is there any mistake! God, knows it all
Let there be any mistake, let it be, I want her, love her

Sapphire luminosity crawls into the mind of Falgun

Listen Baby, you area colour brush
Sit close beside me, it is not a flirt, you know.

JHARNA RAHMAN

Post Office of Neem Leaves

In the morning a sparrow came flying through the window of my room. and suddenly a gush of wind rushed in. The sparrow hopped a few steps. And then again flew away through the window. As if a tiny kite flew away with two of its wings to the sky. After the sparrow left I saw a little wavy Neem leaf is lying on my table. A bluish green leaf. As if a letter. May be a green message from a medicinal forest! Addressed to the people of this polluted city.
Was that sparrow a postal messenger?
Has the messenger returned to the Neem leaf post office?
I opened all the windows of my room.
Let the messenger of the medicinal forest come again.
Let this poisonous city be filled with wavy green messages!
Let us build a new civilization
Let us plant Silk-Cotton and Cotton plants.
Establish weaving machine.
Let us create intrinsic designs with stack of Sheuli
and drops of Sandal.
I’ll call out names of all the healers and Ayurvedic practitioners
from the wild bushy garden of forefathers
And then I’ll install the mayors of the medicinal forests
with the crowns of leaves.

If You

If you speak out once-
Let’s go
Shaheed Minar instantaneously springs up –
and processions of language goes on
I’ll walk past bare-footed crossing the city
in the late night of azure mist
If you pull me with my hands once
you know
All over my body grows up a thicket of scented roses
Chrysanthemum, Jasmine breed and
more of flesh of bones of flowers
If you become the truth only once
only a handful
I look for the sayings of Khona digging out the seed-bed
with the paddy of my life
And a marvelous monument build up soaring high
from my flesh and bones of the soil of my body.

MASUD KHAN

In the Season of Fever

It was out season of changing. It was changing of our cast.
We two wanted to enter into some specific destruction.
Before that you got fever. It was severe temperature.
You caught hold of the mercury of the thermometer
and going up continuously one hundred five, six, seven, eight . .
degrees after degree.
The temperature kept on rising to that height where there was not level, have no degree.
The mercury of the bar at one time were burst out of the thermometer
into burning liquid
Even to this high boiling temperature the women do not collapse.
Rather they look a bit haggard, like Karali.
The more beautiful, the more Karali they seem to be in fever.

At time, she made that bursting thermometer her broomstick
and flew up above to the unseen unusual occurrence, where are you
flying away O dear witch of mine.
First time in life I faced direct disaster . .
From the hide-out of thermometer ooze
out boiling drops of extract of semen.

Refusal

Abruptly, today the child was expelled from the tits of his mother
He goes back on and on to have it,
but he was rebuked, scolded, becomes astounded,
But still he approaches again

Unaware, doesn’t understand its meaning of this expulsion
He couldn’t understand the nature of his mother
Only thinks- its a fun, but such cruel!
Why mother turns out to be step mother at this dry season suddenly?!
He thinks dejectedly, hapless, but again goes near her
Again the child faces reprimand, again he get dazed, Still he goes. . .

Weeping timidly, at last he drops into sleep with numb smugness
He sleeps on the soil frozen.
Only sound of his thirst touches the ear,
interrupted, all over the nature, here and there.

Fire-fighting vehicle

A lunatic went up the tree, effortlessly, coming out of the asylum.
He doesn’t comes down, until the short nurse comes
And requests him to come down.

The nurse comes fast, like a fire-fighting vehicle,
She spoke something signing something with her hands
With that the lunatic came down the tree happily
The way a koi-fish move over with its ears
As easy as the serial numbers are counted
The lunatic’s non-acting sense acted as instructed by the nurse

The lunatic again returns back to the asylum
He faces unmoved keeping his head on the bed
Thirteen electric shocks.
Thirteen times confession, with serene and cool
Instruction of the health-priest.

PARITOSH HALDAR

Temperature

Extreme warmth is forming up. Death descends with crystal clear aroma from the flickering eyes. The sky hangs over the head. In my frontier there is no modesty or indecency. Only I search terminal stars around the moon. Sometimes, when wake up I see midnight is lying beside me on my bed, as if the body of my wife. In the waters of Brahmaputra, three times I saw the bathing festival of the goddesses, shy-ridden ambrosial figures. My secret is lost in cunning mystery. I too walk miles after miles in processions. The vagrant play twenty seconds and milli-seconds with his twenty fingers. I suddenly stop and paint golden strokes of eternity on the feet. Sometimes, in this earth, I prepare moon-beam in the black-smith workshop all alone.

Lonely Mineral

I forgot everything. I forgot in which hand I keep the pot and the gold orb on the other. My morning went back, while strolling in the dark misty forest. I myself turned into water in the soul of Shraban, while calling you in the names of so many rivers, Tista, Begabati, Nilaksmi. Flocks of birds come flying with the sounds of winds in the affection of harvest. Profound fondless of garden can be seen in the green-body of the dragon-fly. Only the shades shout, I outdo the period of sunshine. The things I finds out after great search, have vegetative darkness. The night sleeps under the veils of bosom, why didn’t you wake her up, wake her in the dedication of Sanghamitra. The moon-beam descends like limitless smoke- I couldn’t sleep whole night, the Kanchanjangha fragrance of the hills are being stolen through the whole night. I remained for four hundreds millions of years under the lights of stars. While loosing you, I learnt at last that You too are lonely and love is but lonely mineral.

Bird, Ocean and Theory of Nothingness

I could remain static, I go away far and wide. Glass ornaments are on the bubbles of Atasi. What’s deep is the desire of time- under some tamarind tree fairies used to come down in some full moon, they had cardamom aroma all over their body. My brother used to see them, I saw my grand-ma, who used to make a paste of tamarind with salt and hot pepper and used to distribute among us. Then we had everything, but now we do not find anything in ourselves. In our childhood I used to call the green tree red, that tree did not exist. But still that green turned into my heart as crimson red. I think myself a big zero in the workshop. Now my shadows are slanted, sunshine are like birds. These birds listen to the songs of dead ocean. Some day the oceans will also fly away, like birds, where, I know not.

MINAR MONSUR

Quadruped

1.
I meet him every day, in the enclosed shed of the evening.
He returns exhausted, like a remote rock, thrown away
By a sepulchral mountain. He keeps falling down but he
Beckons him again.
With the yoke of the morning around his shoulder
and the burden of the world on his back, or,
a huge clown covered with gunny sacks,
I see him, rushing on four legs every day, and
I struggle to keep pace, I want to catch up with him,
and tell him ‘Lets talk a bit’.
But my own neighing voice
Startles me. Who is it that speaks inside me?
Another four legged animal ? What dos he tell us
In this strange voice ? Does he whom he addresses
Understand a word ? Does he hear anything ?
The animal has tremendous speed—
easily exceeds the speed of sound.
With the grating sound of his hoofs
He wants to beat someone in the race.
And afterwards to win his prize—the crown of Kuber—
The richest of the rich.
I wish someone told me whom it is that he races against.
Or, Is he himself, being pursued by the deathless, humourless,
All Powerful jockey of Thebes, with an invisible whip in hand?

2.
Quite often I see him, in the stable of night,
pushing his nose into the hay, water and waste,
As if the whole world in an illusion, I see him,
Wagging his tail. Sometimes, in the dark, the black mare
shakes his thighs and quickly disappears.
Sometimes an exciting and hairy slap on his shoulders and flanks
makes him shudder all through his body, in spite of himself.
One his smooth and moist back, inviting and expectant
like crazy thighs,
Settles a heavy saddle, and the invisible
but powerful jockey straddles his back.
He gives a pull to the harness,
And they fly off into a directionless universe:
A rudderless gondola of lust floats on.
His sense is overwhelmed by the smell of blood and
foam frothing at his mouth.
Still, another smell— that of green pea and new mown grass—
brings him back or lets him roll on, playfully,
like a polythene bag full of water,
He stumbles into the evenings pinfold.
I follow him.
I feel like telling him to stop, to collect himself;
To lift the nose into the air, I feel like telling him
To stand tall like trees, to neigh with raw power,
So that the sound, travelling over crop lands and fields
And time itself, should reach the ears of an eternal mare,
Waiting on the other side.
His speed is really great.
The grating sound of his hoofs passes over everything.
I follow him.

HAFIZ RASHID KHAN

To The Israelites

Some one of you must write poems like me, some may sing melodious songs for your communities, some of you might start loving the existence of life, looking at the rural damsels, some of you, while thinking about the diversity of creation, might like the nobility of the person among your ancestors, who turned out to become the Prophet, some of your wounded armoured-descendants might bow down to the cold floor of the Synagogue, burning down in repentance, for slaughtering the children. Some of your loyal detectives should have committed suicide while looking at the dead body of Palestine old man stooping down in prayer on the praying mat with the image of Holy Qaaba.

Hey Israelite politicians and administrators, showing sympathy to all your paltry humanitarian acts I have the courage to say: a furious missile is shot at the full quorum meeting of your Senate at my own approval.

A Hapless Man

I wanted to die
Like a truly hapless man
In the dense forest of the mountain

A group of people came in with their charming daughters
And they sang
And danced like a cataract
They told me about the slaves
A lovely girl
Told me about the importance of
Finishing of aviation oil in the flight.

They told me to live
Like a truly hapless and virtuous man
They adorned my head with
A crown of leaves

In the morning those who laughed at me seeing that crown
Though I felt very terrible about them
An imperceptible love

Kept me calm.

Birth Accounts

When it is difficult to become inspired by some instances
At such sunny noon
I was born irresistibly

I heard mother groaning in the other side

I heard father instructing the neighbour-boy
To tear down the most mature fruit
From the guava tree

The old lady from the neighbourhood
was then sitting on a wooden stool
In the veranda
And was whispering while chewing betel leaf

I felt hungry, but
I couldn’t call my mother

Since then I enrolled myself
In the community of
Rickety and unhappy people.

SARKAR MASUD

Facing the Marvel

People love to face the marvels
The love to face the faraway mists of dancing ocean
If not, why take pictures keeping the ocean behind them?
They mix salty scent of wet wind on the hairs
And cut their feet on the broken shells of nature
People look at the mirror at times
And love to face self-deception!
These knowledge takes me to the depth
Then a little girl looks for catching butterfly
Through the shrubs beside the shore
It is her game, it is her inner happiness
She finds a white butterfly on a prickle
As if it flashes once through her mind
Its wings flatter a bit with the rumble
Then among the cocoanut tree grove
The dark image turns hazy
Through the instigation of
The pains of winds and waves
Last hope crushes down on the sharp edge of stone.

Wind and Air

That fluffy cloud is prepared for its journey
Only waiting for my approval!
This flimsy tall grass, is practicing to swing above the water
Only waiting for my signal!

What the wind give us?
Wind instigate our belief and suspicion
On the day of torn diversity the wind
Develop unification between the heart and water-mark!

The wind will carry this polythene cloud
But where?
Long grasses beside the water, beetle
And life-image of short-story will grow up in the darkness!

Foliages of the Forest

The trees and shrubs of the forest remain awake with dreams
Sun give them affection
Wind submerges into misgivings
The rain turns them into melody-minded, thoughtful;
Their grey leaves were thrown away by the Falgun wind
Lest they seem older

The trees sleep deeply and have good dreams
The thin branches adorn with lanterns of owls
The cat-faced moon rise through the Joinsar creek and Saal grove
To make the dreamy birds remorse and
Through the easy path of belief, and
To sow the thorns of obscure mist.

The foliage of the jungle expose up
The route of new path, for the eternal journey.

SALEM SULERI

Home of rain-clad Sunshine

Who laments more in the rain
The sky or the cloud that gather in the heart
In the scary-blue eyes of the sky
Colours of bats descends
Human eyes have two-coloured glass.
Human beings is a banana-tree of the third world
Its leaves protects the wide sky like umbrella
Well, we are telling our story.
A well is made making a hole in the courtyard, but not water
We dream lying make shopping of dream
Bread and butter, only a house or a farm
To get rid of drought we call out at the field
‘Bumper crop’ to get exaltation we beg for rain
In the heart shallow tube well we wanted electricity
To bring life to it.
We understood if we don’t have strength
Rain from sky or deluge can give
Pensive life every where in the Third World
Whose seasonal happiness engulf the eye that controls the rain
To him luxury of rain is a another curiosity
Is sky also have dejection?
Or the vast sky catches all the fish-like clouds from the heart
Heart is relieves
When its rain where does sun hides his face
Do you know where?
On the melodious tin-roof rain dances with rain
Sun enters the heart of human beings
Now everybody turns to be poet, nobody is spared
Painful of muddy gardens turn into poetry.
Death Falls in Torrents

Look, death is showered all over surpassing the rain
The rain does not come everyday
Inevitably shattered death comes down
The sky rumble, blood-red spilled
Big saw flash like heartbeat

Shall we meet again rain-flower?
I let aside the songs of kodom flower
I want to scatter kodom to Kodom Ali’s Kadpara village
There the dam broke down
And incessantly death coming like deluge
Old strife of fish project, pressure of collecting toll
One can not remember if I have my head on my body
How I could remember your dearer face. Monalisa

First flower of rain – will this title I search for
But only find pain of blooming of kodom in papers and TV
Beside happiness; a car is locked in knee-deep of water
Labourer, carter, housewives all from village or city
Bloom-like a blood-deluge of Shraban
My heart is full of dampen poem
Third world corpse float on
Houses made of bamboo, thatched house, farm house and cows

The name Monalisa is old. Still the sun shines in rainy sky
Rainbow days remain, meetings, waking in rain
Today I feel the sin of memory or faraway subject.

Before that Let’s Go the Liberation War Museum

After passing the examination-busy November
Long leave of sea calls, come to me
Come pairs of legs
Leaves of life, Trotters of generation
Hand full of happiness, busy shells
On the sea beach of pure sand boys and girls are enthralled
Learn the happy-swimming of life
The ocean hisses on with terror
The bodies are stretched over the beach
Dark sunglasses will cove all nakedness
Rush to marine drive or towards the island
Swing the bands with the bumping speed-boat

Go to eco-park. To the waterfalls of Madhab Kundu
Swinging waves to Moheshkhali Vihara
On the Jamuna River, visit the bridge from sides
In the Sunderbans become a tiger
Or a timid deer
And then an emerging tiger
Regularly attracts the deshratna like a deer
As the fish do not have crisis in net-free water
Like-wise happy days at December
Leaves sheds and pen and paper fights
The a colourful freedom, country of your own or foreign
In water-land or sky son-traveler
From tomtom, train to flying concord
So much travelling- doesn’t matter
Only a little request
First lets go to Liberation War Museum
Before that give me your eyes
And see who is protecting your life
So much dedication for this flag, ocean of blood
In the war ship, locate the foes through a binocular
Beside the skull of the martyrs cries
Restless fighter.

Take up the pincers
And make your eyes wide open
First take a tip to your own bloody country
Then its your Examination
Make the difference between the museum and sorcerer

Behold, our future generation
There’s no liberation war. But war remains
There’s no foreigners, but gunpowder remains
Our dreams are only lamentation of Khudiram
They are slaughtered
Weary old faces of the freedom fighters
Remain silent like tremendous sculpture

People search for hero, goes to Britain
Gazes at the wax-toys of Madam Tousseud
Look at every body you like
But before that under the bright floating flag
Touch the walls of Liberation War Museum
And burn down the future waxes.

KAMRUL HASSAN

Who’ll Speak Out?

For him many damsels felt soft waves in their hearts,
Affectionate mother wiped her eyes
on the handkerchief of sleepless nights
Many people wanted to pierce his bosom
with bullets at the slaughtering place
Some also wanted to take him in the family
bathing him in moonlight
Some wanted to throw away in the lake like a counterfeit coin
Some thought of keeping him at their possession
as a precious collectible.

He didn’t developed affinity with anybody,
except the birds and flowers
Nobody ever heart his intense dialogue, except the rivers and sky

The tree-leaves volunteered their chests to keep his sorrows
The clouds opened their miraculous supple drawers
He has kept all his poems recorded in the ears of the trees
Kamrul Hassan will only speak out when the green tapes

I’ll Visit Your City

I’ll visit your town boarding evening train
I’ll board from such a distance that it’ll be Sealdah at daybreak.
Kolkata wakes up with the softness of stale-mouthed Chorai
I’ve in me another Kolkata
A city built up mixing fantasies with dreams.
I’ve got all the names of roads and alleys by heart from my childhood.

I might have kept all those erroneously, parks in place of lakes,
Tram dept in place of parks,
My be I’ve kept Dharmatala adjacent to Maniktala;
But all the lanes, paths, old structures are known to me dearly
I have a city in mind heart, stuck with the gum of childhood
Emerged from novel profoundly read under bleak light

I shall go in pursuit of that city.

Tiana

My child has come to me after traversing a long way. She woke up from a tiny flower at her mother’s womb. That was somewhere near the garden of heaven, the nymphs were dancing nearby, my daughter again dropped down to sleep listening to the sounds of their anklets. The Creator smiles blessedly, during the whole His cheerful gesture built up a boat of light, on which my daughter boarded and floating on the feathers of cloud peeped once, her mother ran towards her and embraced her dream, the a swarnachampa, into her hands, she looked up and saw the flower of heaven and a mirror.

My child has come to me after traversing a long way or I myself reached her crossing a meandering path. The Sun was emitting his warmth on the peaks by the paths of Mirik, through that golden stretch I started to quiver at the brilliance of its beauty, my forefather called out from my within, That’s the Creator, I begged for a piece of Sun’s ray, like a Sun-worshipper, a small piece of paradise to kindle warmth.

Inside the forest I saw a frightened fawn. Signs of millions of running footsteps, its dazzling brightness enkindled impossible blaze inside the jungle, it was more illuminated than the emerald fire of the Goddess, in her eyes flowed a enchanted river, a pair of dream-clad timid lips. As if my daughter is that piece of fire, a bashful deer. Navigating a long way near the meadows of father, under the mother-tree.

BILU KABIR

Glasses

Is there any such height
Where you sits and feels
That people are smaller than human beings?
You are destitute in praising others!
You want to make everybody pauper
Look, today you face such a disgrace.
Why do you wear glasses full of scratches
In the frame of illusion
You look ghastly, even you can not look clean.
Better become brighter in moonlit atmosphere
Let your eyesight be illuminated with senses
Like a germinated tree
Flowers of Sunlight be enlightened on the canvas of cloud
What you see and how others see you
All turn out to be beautiful
Let you see clearly
Let you become beautiful
Let a spectacle be found with purity and auspicious.

Carriage at the Door

Then let there be holiday
Leaving aside all the errors of life
And frowning of light, lets go towards darkness
From known to unknown.
The obscurity of the bright day
At the turning of time
Who knows how many bears were in ambush
With their sharp claws and nails
Why do you ride a delusional turtle
With no destination, place of no return
Nowhere to go, bragging of restlessness
Only proceeding ahead to endless helplessness
Keeping aside the light we move towards darkness
From unknown to immense night.

Like a Tree

History of genocide do not gets old
What we got today, might become ancient someday
But the soreness of loss are the songs ever-young
That odes are far more an agonizing song than
They are full of meter and melody
This country is like a tree
It want to give flowers, fruits, vegetation and shade too
To everything to everybody, to friend and to foes alike.
But the wood-cutter, as and when requires
‘With a smile of a fanatic’ invades
With axe on his hand.
His tree-destroying assault
Devastating orgy attitude,
Plundering stance never diminishes.
When time comes they strike like a snake
With poisonous fangs, like ungrateful Cobra
History of genocide do not gets old

PULAK HASSAN

Poem of Sufferings

What are those messages
In your eyes
That are stopped suddenly
Like bits of dry stalks on the
Beaks of birds!
As if beaconing
Dropping down now
Dew drops
From the grass leaves.

Without the touching
But its bottom
Can not be found
So I’m writing down
The stanzas of sorrows
Like the sky on the eyes of birds
Nothing can be touched.

Ruined Youth

Emaciated leaves are shuddering
In the afternoon breeze

Its light body can be known
Under distressed shade

That ailment is like a dreamy intoxication
There are grief in both eyes
But body is powerless

The river has become shrunk in ebb tide
Coiled up like a dog
On the wide sandy land.

Prity Das

Boarding on the Turna Nishitha train
Form Chittagong, the mysterious death-dispatcher
Might be travelling with Prity Das;
On the way, a bolt came, as a flying stone,
From the sky, through the open window
And united both of them in an eternal bondage
And the evening wailed,
for the non-returned bird to its nest
At the exude of the time.

REZAUDDIN STALIN

How the Scientist left the Royal Court

All the pleasure elements of the Royal Majesty became exhausted
Pleasant drinks and exquisite beauties turned out to be repellent
Disbelief engulfed all through the bones and marrows,
The commanders, sentries and ministers.
Only loyal remained was a dog
And an old scientist.

His Excellency ordered- turned it into a peacock
The scientist turned into an exquisite bird
The Court burst into applaud
Create a blue rose into the space
Surprisingly it is bloomed
Members of the Assembly cried out with admiration
Turn the moonlight-devouring New Moon into Full Moon of Magh
The enchanting moonlight swelled all over
Make such a voting machine
That there’ll be an election without voters
He was elected overwhelmingly
Again there’s applause and clapping

Still the depression of His Excellency didn’t disperse
The scientist builds a time machine
His Excellency goes beyond time and crosses all his deeds
Now His Excellency ordered
Make me colossal than the history
The scientist engulfed into severe exhaustion and disheartened

History is the prime truth – he said

And then he left the Court with bowed head
Moved on – unhurried
Where the Earth revolve round the Sun.
After You became Soundless

I was born twenty years after you got silenced
I was born in the time of imprecation and barbed wire
When the flower is called sin, life is called anguish
When all the dreams are nightmares
All the hopes are dejection
All the beauties turned out to be dreadful
And all the deaths are unnatural.

After you became silent
the ‘Bidrohi’ was recited from the nine million voices
At the painful tune of your song ten million depressed lovers shed tears
You have been used one thousand millions times
Against injustice and oppression
But we couldn’t rise up
From those deaths
From those depressions and disgrace
Those humiliation and disesteem.
We can not speak out the truth even today.

Still today, the bosom of Bhrigu deity is unspoiled
There your footsteps are bowed down to the stooges
And do not get admitted in the temples
None of your children or else earned self-reliance.

After you are silenced, fruitlessly we tried to seek language of protest in your poems
Searching endlessly we turned exhausted
And found out in dense darkness
After a long time we found out the prime truth
Your silence is the greatest protest of the world.

Future Dot Com

The world is changing with the changing of time
Computer is grasping away the pens
The passionate distance enhanced the expectations of the dear ones
Mobiles has evacuated that invisible root
All the ancient symbols and topics have changed
Integral component, the election, that is needed for democracy
There even symbols will be needed with the need of time
Future generation shall not know anything except military equipments
Therefore favourite marks of the election have to be changed
Instead of boat submarine
Instead of sheaf of paddy Cruz missile
Bomber planes instead of plough
In place of scale there will be A.K 47
Helmet in lieu of umbrella
Bunker instead of chair
Like this, names of all our daily household items
Shall turn out to sound differently.
We shall, henceforth, call rice bullets
Foodstuff as gun-powder
Water as molecule and
Dresses as armour
Whereas we’ll term heart as e-mail
Love will become dot com
and our houses internet.

JEWEL MAZHAR

Laughter of Megasthenes

You are loading gunpowder in the soundless
cannon alone
The winter passed away
Why do you are loading gunpowder
in the soundless cannon alone?

I’m contemplating; whether laughter of Megasthenes
is also Megasthenes?

Among all these powered jest
Brown mares fly away
Sounds of engines and robotic coughs can be heard.

Do you still loading gunpowder in the soundless cannon?

Talisman

1.
Show me your eyes
I’ll carry with me night winds
And fragrance
To you.

2.
Where is enchanting cloud?
Where did you go, O stranger?
I’m miserable
In Spring I call out secretly
Becoming a Cuckoo at noon
Beside your house.

FERDOUS NAHAR

The keys of Cage

Bird of skillful darkness
Where have you lost the keys of cage
Opening the button of solidified gloom
I scribble something unintelligible
And after a few moments call out.

You’ve forgot the names while coming near
Faltering in the darkness,
I looked back a few times
And spoke out from the other side of forgetfulness,
I couldn’t recollect anything . . ?

The wind will bid farewell again and again
The darkness will return towards light
I’ll not find the right path after walking many avenues
The villains will find out naturally
Who was more villainous

Flames are like whips, fires are but endless
Lanterns smile hanging under the push-cart
When the train stops at the station
The humming morning songs come down from it
The locks of the cage will be disengaged!

The opening and closing of a poem

A picture was included in the opening of my book of poems
A desolate station, a blue train carriage, a pregnant woman
and a man behind her
I didn’t know why the editor included it, but I liked it.

In that misty station there was a blue and white platform
Around a tree, covered by green brunches
The sunlight played among the dense-green leaves
And were playing on the platform
A far-away path is seen from the window of station master’s room,
a rail crossing
And the halted railway carriage, alighting and boarding
of human beings
The movement of the train, its going away and desolation once again

The pregnant walks alone, somebody walks behind her
I couldn’t recollect what the time it was
May be its noon, or it was no time at all
The woman walks on – the fetus of he womb moves,
she looked down
A cat calls out, ‘Miou’ somewhere near her.
The station says the fetus to go to sleep,
The baby says to the woman
‘Mom, don’t stop, move on.’

Enjoyment

Men enjoy women’s jealousy, I experienced such in Montreal
Moving away from the water-front
A lovable woman became angry with her male escort
And he smiled and winked at other males and tried to signal,
Look how she behaves.
Likewise after crossing the stone age, iron age, fire age
And to the ice age,
Then they, at the interior, they kindled the fire
And instigated the symbolic feelings
With the intimate clinging of drinking pot
They closed to them with dwindling steps, without a wink.

Who knows who spoke out.

TARIK SUJAT

Come Back!

In childhood the blaze of war
burnt all traces of path
nomadic – then onwards!

At dead of night floating in the tranquil rivers
couldn’t behold the rays of dawn: in darkness ever since!

Bloody 1975 in early youth!
In a lac-house the innocent soul heard
the demon’s guffaws: stone deaf ever since

In youth the mangy body of politics
was rife with a dictator’s democracy-
our demonstration for freedom split into two

The hues of two rivers flowing to the sea never unite,
Fallow ideological fields.
even after fierce tilling remain barren?

Ever since the identity of a generation obsequious
The identity of a generation freedom-lovers

Deaf in Nomadic darkness will that generation today,
at the high noon of life move towards decrepitude?

Invincible Seventy one
Come,
come back
restore courage
To crores of freedom-loving souls’

In A Land Once Full Of Rivers

Bridges are prominent than rivers
pillars than the bridges
by the power of the pillars strong
Men are occupying fishes ridges.

Leaders are loftier than the country.
names than the leaders.
under the illusion of names here
inaugural letters are being wiped off?

In this land of rivers
dead children float in the streams-
the father himself is wandering
in search of his lost child.

The postbox is waiting alone
for a new letter to come.
the letter by itself
somehow reached
the graveyard.

The Church and I

Time goes by. time passes,
And casting shadows longer
than itself
has reached the end.

Behind it
memories like grasses
in the pale light of the setting sun:
one afternoon
it walks home…

A traveler, who didn’t look for
footprints on his path. . .

Time goes by, time passes;
some dust
from the road scatters
and gets lost on the same road.

SHIHAB SHAHRIAR

Theory of Birds

I search for the colour of wings and crossed the Brahmaputra

Then there is solid sand
Then there is darkness of night
Then sleepy banks of river
Then the birds return from the perimeter of the river
Then we seek for the fragrance of the river-mingled winds

I do not understand the theory of birds,
but look for the colours of the wings.

When the Star breaks apart

The sun-rays suck up the sweats of the birds
There’s no measuring-scale to assess the virility of the Sun-ray

Some day I stepped on the blonde grass
and saw three faces of my fore-fathers

From then on I am alone
Now I will walk towards the longitude

The body of woman have emotion
They walk past the far, farthest and extensive distance

There is no sign of fear around burning pier
Still I walk through the milky-way with the intoxication of stars

If anybody flies her nostalgic scarf
I’ll go to the celestial body and cultivate newer clouds.

The wings of dragon-fly burns

When you come out of the room, your journey is stopped by a weird sound. You know not, from where the sound comes from and where it goes away. Do you know? some sounds comes from the eyes of the winds, some are derived from the ripples of the rivers, Some sounds mingle with the blue of the horizon, are dissolve there, were lost forever . . . look here at mid Autumn there is jingling sounds of rain, is this sound is stopping you too? Are you scared? Why do you are frightened of sound so much? Why you are forgetting the hundreds of favourite sounds of poems of dearer poets . . you couldn’t find the source of the sounds after engaging detectives. There are sounds when the glass bangles breaks down, there is sound when you go to sleep at odd time, there are sounds when you swim causelessly, it sounds if you look at the sky without reason, if you go to the street without any motive . . . Do you wake up at the sound of flapping of the wings of eagles? When at the mid-day of the month Kartik when a lonely hawk fly in the sparkling sun-shine, then do you lay inert locked up in your darken room . . .

ABU SYEED OBAIDULLAH

Near the Snowy Mountain

Looking at the snowfalls, I shall only recite poetry, I tell you.
The Sita- necklace at the bottom of white mountain, Duldul horse,
whatever come airborne, I tell you.
Guards wearing red garments, also show tricks and
swiftness of an alien aura!
The ostrich and cats were about to go. The damsel,
came out of the bus has golden pigeon in her body.
I search frantically for wheat seeds.
Among all these unions of gathering,
Man becomes tiger by grasping the breast of woman.
The guests sat on the white grass. Such a morning,
at the breakfast table,
as if the human beings are never boarded on the Earth.
Their memories of childhood days are identical to lithe wine.
We complete all our discussion after looking
at the route-knowing wild solitary deer.
The path you keep can not be fused with the snowfalls.

The shepherds of the black buffaloes-
shall go a far-reaching way, with the carriage.

Innocence

I keep up my innocence
dear mango tree you are my kin.

If I attain your shadow in this assembly of hunting
as is found in perpetual Mango-orchard.

Shunning tendency turned out to be a norm,
Still I sense ecstasy, still I long for love from man.
What do you send from the distance?
In the Bishkhali field- rifles of the enemy
and pigeon hunting, these dazzling confinement
as the hunters at wild.

In this overwhelming wind
a single flicker also has a flowery flame.

With all mind and heart of innocence
I keep waiting and ignite the agar-lamp.
You come flying from the bed of a flesh-trader
and marry me.

Everything– the long twisting necklace
the cinema show– are nothing but nonsense
as is the idea of partition among the humans.

You’re not shivering, O Carcass

Weary herds of cows and market-men left the place in a bunch.
Mounting religious-compulsion ends up in control of the frontier.
The peels of mangoes, tinsel lie beside the meadows.
The profound clinches of girls and the love of bamboo-leaves
are immersed in the morning river.
You are not trembling, O Corpse!

The hair is flying in the wind
How the longing to return halts the community of the apes!
Somewhere, far away, the night of the body-music
spreads across the bed
and the bodies cuddle each other with the enchanting feelings.
I feel, this anticipation will come to an end someday
in the land of water, in the beliefs of the boatman.
Losing you forever, I expand the loveliness
of the arum greens in the water-air
and kindle flames out of my own ultimate clothes.

And look at the fertility of the soil
which enter through the crinkles of the dresses of girls
into the fascination of our offspring.
You are not trembling, O Corpse!

KAMRUL BAHAR ARIF

In Pursuit of Banalata

When a damsel takes up the book of poem
In between her lips and binds her long flowing hairs
While walking then she herself turns into a poem.
And the path on which the poem walked past
Tell me with pride, Hey
Where do you go in searching of Banalata!
Through the Paris road to Monnujan;
Turn your eyes to this side
I assure you- you won’t be frustrated.
And listen carefully, Jibananda
Termed this poem Banalata . . .

They’re Associates of Necessity

In the hustle of the city, crows are the majority
And in absence of harmless shelter minority weasels
Looked so lifeless, silently comes out of their den in their need
In their food habits they are of same nature.
Crows think they’re the sole authority of world’s food-storage
With sharp beaks and harsh call they declare that to the weasels.

The weasels also need food;
Want to live peacefully;
So in fear and silence timidly they come out
of their den to the bustling city, in pursuit of food.
The crows keeps great vigilance
The crows are very much united.
With great clamour they declare their right.
Submissive and docile weasels being minority
Return to their holes half-fed.

The weasels turns out to be friends of crows in need
Crows knows to protect their eggs
The weasels are needed to drive away the animals.

Poet-Cap

Poet, without identifying your fashionable cap
Stupid fanatic Hindus and Muslims,
At their requirement made you infidel, at times pious!
At one time you are for the temples, at times
you belonged to mosque
They didn’t looked at your vision of love and humanity
But for which, you walked through the streets in destitution
For your journey you ended your way to the prison
of the ruler’s disgrace.

Look, at that banner behind! look at that poster,
On the walls of the house, in the CDs of your songs . .
What a weird cap you wear- under which you are
Too much dull, unworthy! In the children’s book
Upholding the banner of Islam what weird stories are told
Poet, in the glory of the word Islam in your name
Today before your poet identity, you have become to them
You turn out to be an atheistic, some humanist and religious .

Hail Poet Nazrul! Oh Poet Nazrul,
Hail to yours cap that do not have religious flavour.

TAPASH GAYEN

Broadway: Times Square

At the crossing point of Broadway and Times Square, O Vante, I heard the wailing of your favourite ascetic Ananda. From moonlight washed Sal-forest the migratory birds have taken away your body to different horizon, and I was standing at the centre of the world: this Times Square; at different wave-length of light. Vast and giant billboard, this lighted world, and this light dazzles to this body, still I remain invisible in this human body. This life, devoid of love and of knowledge your departure has turned into an Epic, a worn out scripture for last thousand years. Not the light of benevolence, frenzy of war has grown up in this world; in the water, land, air; primarily and finally in this remote human heart.
I’m an warrior, downright lonely. After the completion of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century wars, My days are short, and I’m linked with the legs of human beings. Those who are my fellow-warriors, in the war-fields and companions of Pubs of this Times Square , some of them were lost in the battles of the Pacific ocean or some died at the clashes in the avenues of Paris. After the battle of Times Square again exaltation rose up, the Marines planted Padabali at the lips of the nurses, hymns of nudity, and arrows of Time. Scribbling down this Holy Ayat I walk past day and night.
Human beings remained human beings to the last. Broadway theatre, pub, coffee shop and in different stores rise light hearted deluge. Within it builds up songs of pairs of men, tap dance of men and women, and solo-mime. Now, in the day-end I stare at the high-rise sky-scrappers. in this bustles I hear the sobbing of Shraman Ananda in solitude. Because, Vante did not dies at his favourite Baishali township or in any big city. Here Anand’s pain grew up and his wailing sound. O Lord, why I am still standing at the busiest city, at the centre of the world, at the junction of Times Square and Broadway? Let there be storm in the goblet, let waters flow down the Hudson River and East River, still I want to remain silent, as if a mime artist of the Times Square. O Vante, I do not want to be somebody’s wailing sound at the end of the day.

FARIDUZZAMAN

Sorcerer

Look there, the sorcerer is showing tricks with a fist full of dust
In dense darkness Adam’s eyes sees golden line of Eve
The implanted embryo in sprinkled out from the womb
the green copulation of Nature is saturated by
the symphony of attachment.

Look there, the sorcerer is showing tricks with a fist full of petals
The cataract is flowing down the source of river
Somebody is rejoicing after kissing the face of the snake
And are trembling the city by roaring regally out like a tiger

Look there, the sorcerer showing tricks with a fist full of butterfly
The hearts are opening with awe at the sounds of swans wading through the water
The buds of beauty are dazzling with the uncountable exaltation
The assemblage of Sayambar was arranged all through
the Earth and Heaven
Exalting rays of light is falling down from the forest of Maya
And shudder of enchantment are pervading through the shores

Look the sorcerer is showing tricks with Binapani
The flowers have bloomed through the industrial city of Shahbagh
The poet is decorating the school of light with many ornaments.

RAZU ALAUDDIN

The Era of Light

When all the sides get illuminated more and more
The darkness becomes denser infusing into the illumination

Therefore there is more expansion of light
And so there is more night, look,
The night permeates more deep into the Hades

Still I know, efforts of human beings
Runs towards eternal darkness taking the glory of light with him.

Transliteration

‘Tell me, then, O strange unknown man
Who are you and where from
Have you come here?

I am transliteration
Of all secret matters
Imperceptible, from the manuscript
of unknown language.
It was translated in collaboration of
My father and mother.

PULIN RAY

Water Verses

I shivered stepping on the water-body
Making the Time my witness, I advanced further
I looked in the crystalline water
And see the reproduction of life

The shower of melody is in the rain
Emotions build up in rain
I gather all the rains in my palms

Ocean desires water
Lover needs rain
Beloved wants deep darkness
The time move on silently

I go on measuring the sky
With my arrogant mind
And dissolve into the shadows of water.

Dwelling in the Beaks of the Bird

I’ve built my residence in the beak of the bird
The birds bills are red and blue coloured
The plasters of hope deposited into layers of Time
Sealed into a blue envelope
I attach with the beaks of birds
When the Sun sets in the waters of Haor
The assemblage of bird starts
At the very well-kept courtyard

The dreams goes on frolicking in the beaks of birds
Like the ripples of the Haor water
With all my dreams.

Alliance of Life

I stood on the overpass of senses many a times
My mind was smeared with the colour of
sedimentary rock of sensibility
In the depth of life the mystery of sky
Impermeable rule wrapped blue safe,
Are hidden in the bosom of offended cloud
Forgetting the signal of the route the monsoon wind
move towards North
Songs of the Century is heard from the voice of Dahuk and
Simple peasant wipes away salty sweat
The project profile was drowned
Into the transparent of our river
In the cloudy days an accord was reached
One life with another one.

SARKAR AMIN

I do not like working in the Police Station

The heart is melting down like a candle
You are but a harmless fire
Hundreds of fire brigades go back empty-handed

Steal from me, O Bandit-queen
I do not like working in the Police Station.

I Am Only a Marble, Honey

I keep on absconding from myself
It’s not at all easy to abduct me

I make myself hidden inside the body of bright paddy-seed
I merge into the green grass as the afternoon sunlight
I hide myself into the sound of
flapping of the wings of swimming ducks
It is not at all easy to locate me.

Do not make yourself lost while searching me
Rolling away like a childish marble

I’ve learnt to come more close to you.

Songs of Relaxation

The eyes could not know when I feel to sleep
The Sun has returned to Australia by that time
Jumping like a little boy

Abyss after abyss the gap yawned into a big opening
who else wants to go to the hospital
May be I caught some dead fishes imagining those alive

Your cows eat grass hopping at Dattakhola Char
Cow-boy go for a rest now,
your eyes are blood-shot in depressed fever.

SHIMUL MAHMUD

Milieu of not falling to sleep

I stared at your exceptionally white skin hidden behind your sari and wanted to call you softly; I wanted to call you touching the flow of your blood that flow under your unusually light skin.

I didn’t like pricking of syringe by the nurse in your fair skin while lying in hospital bed, if hues of your name is hidden under the silvery light of Hilsa fish or when the fish fries develop breathing problem in the river.

When you recovered up, a shoal of fishes floating in the river wait for wide open wind or when you walk in olive-coloured sari looking from far the fish-fries float against the stream and then I touched your under garment that was seen on your back and you inarticulately whispered, ‘Hey, you boor, or when I bit your finger a little you mumble, ‘oh, it hurts, and again you try to hide the strap of your bra that is seen on uncommonly light skin; that view of hiding couldn’t let me fall sleep.

O My Miserable Bangla, I love you

I return to the village of Harinranga, giant tree and country of attractive birds . . . ; the trees decorate their green branches. The fragrance of primitive world floats from near past; you are walking with sixty eight thousand villages, moonlight-bathed night or alone with full of humiliation, like the girls of Yatra.

I walk to the meadow of Bilkamal to face spasm; emerald dejection, grasshopper afternoon, illusion of Babla night. Again the childhood dawn will arrive, bathing under the shower, horses of traders, vast meadow. Gloom that spread over the pasture; darkness will engulf all over; the night will become dense, the hearty-moon pain, moon’s sister. At last cloud, cloud and river, river and sky . . .; dejections of rain dropped down last night. . .; O my depressed Bangla, I love you.

HASAN Al-ABDULLAH

The Time seizes the hands

The Time seizes the hands

War, hunger, perpetual public terror
Suspicion, careless conflicting habitation
Fatigue, enormous weep of life including decay,
Still infallibly
The Time seizes the hands.

Regularly unfastening the chain of sounds like a lunatic
Searching flags of victory everywhere like a crazy
Throwing away handful of wind to the sky like a fanatic
Unfathomable statistics of sleepless darkness like a fool.
Because then too
The Time seizes the hands

Beside the fertile land of Shakespearean study
Run towards eternity taking up the alphabets
The importance of numbers be edited
Farmar goes to his own abode from the dock
Even before that Galileo, the great Galilee,
Widened ultra-modern thoughts through the telescope
Spreading lights all over the earth
The blind still walk through the darkness of prison.

On the other side of the boundary the games of Baishnab poets
Madhuda, Rabindranath,
Kazi Nazrul Islam in the tune of his own flute
Draw Swaraj, the country, dream, possible civilization
And run towards the courageous pursuit
Because there too
The Time seizes the hands

The memory of undue culture, unremitting torment of the British
Conceit, digging the crude ageless grave in the joy of division-spree
Live a ordered life– in the houses of the blood-bathed Africa and Asia
The noise of horses hoofs
With assaulted conscious
The Time seizes the hands.

From the chilling past to the unspoken future
From the banded ghastly shout
Emerges another life of Human beings
From vultures, Boars gradually keeping own shoulder, head,
in and out of Heart uninvaded
And towards the illuminated grenary
Total truth
Walk on, untiringly walk
Because, still now
The Time seizes the hands.

Sinking Darkness

Ghastly reality all around a bunch of growing darkness

My activities have not completed yet . . whereas scorpion-world is exalting by implanting its fang in disparate frenzied dance of vein and marrow.

On the other hand the human beings are queued, infectious conscious, limited voice and submerged in the darkness destined to hang himself up . . .

Before being captivated such thoughts used to crawl on the floor, here and there. Nothing is intelligible of this cell where the darkness has turned into walls, still I fumble about in regular interval like a snake with broken spine, I shout to my lungs, as if a abominable dog . . hapless with broken neck and legs.

Immersing darkness . . ghastly, monstrous exhausted Time.

Intervening Outcry

Scream echoed on the palm of right hand
As if the bullet hit the plaster of the wall . .

Then it was dead of night
On the high road, a few steps outside
From my room, the vehicles shoot our . .
This torture now-a-days has become tolerated, accepted;
It has clung to my life, like nights and days.
So intervening outcries . . sometimes feel unknown
Like century newborn it summersaults
My fever-prone poisonous body irritates.

Who else take care of the accounts book?
Who is senior or who is measured a few meters short
For the time being turns to be a poet of less calibre
Who ever writes poem taking that into consideration?\
If the nature of dust, food, spade or plough
Are simple and easy
Then national upliftment is aggravated in the village?
Taking up such trifle debate
The pen stops scribbling
At its liberty.
The intervening shouting turns aside
Then it is at all useless to judge
The Irish influence on Tagore songs
Or conversion of Indian religious songs to Westland genre.

SAZZAD QUADIR

Money! Listen, Its Money

Poet? litterateur? Nothing to worry!
If one’s a President, or a minister, MP, then one can be a poet, too.
Look at the tricks of those bureaucrat poets?
Effortlessly they write down rapidly, and are printed promptly!
If one is a taxation bureaucrat
The books come up within a wink
And look at me? Money, you know, its only money!
Intellectuals, poets and the like, I tame them all with money.
Professors-journalists, all come here in bunches
Can’t you see –
How they lick my feet! It told, can also lick mu bum too!
I pay through advertisements, functions . . do you know?
Ringing me many a times, sending people ten times
The publish my trashed in the anniversary or special issues
And the journals and periodicals feel thrilled.
In earlier days, they used to throw away in the garbage
Now, they pick up with respect
Touches it on the forehead, like Holy scripture
And kiss it with awe
And print it with great importance in four colour!
They have to print those, SOB!
If I write in my left hand and throw it on the face in right hand
Even then, they will print!

Our Freedom

So much light is pouring in all sides – all sides –
This amazement can not be tolerated anyway.
It feels, it is a dream – unreal – unearthly!

I was very silent and composed altogether
Then suddenly this hilarious illumination – colourful outburst
Still I learnt instantaneously
There’s nothing to be silent anymore for me,
Nothing to be absorbed in rapt attention.

As much I say, Take me – make me tranquil
Pull me down at the bottom
But that does not happen.
I bloomed as millions of flowers
Floated in the deluge of life
Every flowing through both the banks of this riverine country

Today exaltations all over
Today its our victory.

Krishnochura
(To Akhtarun Nahar Alo)

‘Krishnachura? At this Falgun?’
I said, ‘No, it can’t be.
Where are such dazzling fire, now?’
She said, ‘Yes, there is, there are
Krishnachura.’
They bloom crimson, and redder too.
In this city. Want to see?
Then come with me.’
I said, ‘I’ll go. But it’s impossible!
How could you show me
Krishnachura at this Falgun?
She said, ‘Surely, I’ll show you
If you come with me.
And only with me.

MATIN RAIHAN

The Story of Home

There’s no place called home, still we return in the lure of this home
The destructive river pulls down the home, the Hilsa is attracted in rain
And comes near the banks, the great fishermen are the kingfishers
This is water’s law. Tales of fishermen are written in water and fire

The birds too build nests, the birds too have sons, daughters and wives
In the evening the bird-girls returns soaking in rain; the bird-boys,
They too return home later, late at night
All the scandals of the bird families, are heard about the bird-girls
The waves of human beings also influence the bird families

There’s no place called home, its only the symbol of home
Let’s not talk about the houses,
talk about the house-full of human beings.

Let anyone say anything

I am pulling the ears of the wind with all the power of my body
Because all the gossips spread through the wind
Looking at this act, look the ocean is growling in suppress anger
Is the ocean the damsel of next door
Whose bosom will dwindle at any time
With the full-sprouted youthfulness?

Let anybody speak anything
The wind smells the fragrance of countless kisses

I can easily scratch on the matches and lit a fire
At any time
Because I have ample of fire stored inside me
To measure the depth of water
The heat of shimmering fire car radiate anywhere at anytime
Like the rippling waves

Desire is the foremost theme, and others are eye-catching
design-work.

Legend of Winter and a Gypsy

One day a neat winter came to my door
Shivering and knocked and said,
‘Give me warmth’
I distributed some warmth in love of migratory birds.

I know, how intense the grief of frost-beaten sorrows
Of lonely winter can be
May be green-coated lakes of Savar know a little
And the swamps, bogs and marshes of Bangla also know.

I remember, in that adversity I’ve given you the warmth of wings
And dresses of dream-clad sunshine, but vegetarian, like me
You are somewhat carnivorous
So, nit in vegetation, I used to get you in the
Images of stripped tigers of river
May be it was a error-filled letter.

Still the winter comes, and winter goes each year
Before the winter comes the draught, famine and deluge
That personal winter never comes again
May be it has forgotten the name of home-tucked boul.

TUSHAR GAYEN

Felani

You are hanging from the barbed wire
O! Grey-coloured tiny Doel,
Your wings are trapped in the barbed wire
Your light body is hanging upturned
Desolate miserable field of Winter turned deaf
In the darkness there’s concealment of mist
But it’s not mist, it is not denser
To cover up your body
Beside the fence border dogs
With targeting bullet
Pierced your body.

Alas, O my dear little Doel
Your wings were not so heavy
That you could fly over the barbed wire
You don’t have not that strength
Even you falter while you climb
Up the steps of the ladder
The steps were slippery with the evening dew
Over your head calls the moon of dreams
Father went up before you
Guiding the route beckoning:
Can’t you follow the steps, with care?
Catch hold of both the side mindfully . .

Look, I’m following you, papa,
Don’t get scared a bit
I’ve climbed the tree before
That was even higher, no problem,
Then, papa, what happened to me?
Dark cloud covered the moon
While catching the higher step
My legs slipped away from the ladder
Why I’m hanging upside down?
O God, A sharp nail has pierced in my heart!

O my dear little Doel
Crimson petal-like wound of your body
Is piercing my body now, every often.

Ingenious Dynamic Water

Come here, O Fairies, play in the water
Here in this fathomless water,
The Moon oozed through the filter of cloud
And dives into this water again and again
Your spoilt males never used this before
From quite a distance, I’ve only let loose
My innocent fingers Into the water like fishes
On your navels suddenly startlingly
My fingers rang out like the strings of guitar
At the bottom the waves of blood turns snowy.
There’s only one apple moving in the orbit
Eve falling downwards ousted from the Heaven
Adam is also following her, suddenly from nowhere
Newton came and purified all the sins and floats inert
Knowing the Law of Gravitation

There’s no truth left, no object left too
In our hands, object can turn into power
When turned into speed in full force
Before that the time will devour everything
Love will turn into relative function;
White and black with change their specific places.

Now, where should I go, tell me, Whoever give me
Poison or ambrosia . . . then give me fathomless water

Here in the flowing water dips white fairy, still a virgin
No corrupt human beings violated them
Take up the moon from the water
Through the translucence of the water
My youthfulness will permeate
They will be impregnated with the dreams of new child.

Shadow of Impiety

The distance of silence between the two sounds is one galaxy. I’m waiting to speak with you, in my grip the cell-phone is becoming heavy like a curved bow, my feet are being numbed with dense snow, on my head burns the smoldering fire. You’re nor responding to my phone, nor you’re calling me! I’m dying of opposing heat. I’m made of water and fire, so my wrath is natural. like transparency, it is as normal as going away without speaking to me.

You’ll be impatient to meet me, you’ll repeatedly remind me, watery part in me will become heated gradually, my fire will make me expand, I’ll turn into steam and shall try to move fast through the air and try to go near you – you’ll become scared, hesitation will chew you up, like a saw. You’re an idol of silt, you’ll hide yourself to protect you from not being diluted, you’ll play hide and seek with me, as if you are seeing me fir the first time. Your hesitation will make me severely angry, but some wind will make me cool apparently, so that like a homely-man I too will feel how everything could be normalized.

I’ll go to you, distance of a long time will be sucked up like blotting paper. We’ll gaze at ourselves, and see in ourselves stands Time, like a giant unholy creature. We’ll push together to remove him, it will incline to my body and on you, time and again secretly like a pendulum. And quarrel will spread among us, as two countries of the Third World engage into conflict as the prey of imperialistic power. Still there is mountains, like bosom of women, blue sky as navel and care of ocean- ancient motherly nature, who look after her children, and our crisis will be pacified a bit! We’ll return home riding a bending train, accepting the architectural wonder of the city.

To create a city, like any effort, blood of innumerable trees, creatures and human beings are needed.

KAKOLI MUKHERJEE

Fairy Tales

Just think once some day you were king in the jungle of Kashbon
You had feathers of peacock on your head
And a flute in your hand
Postman delivered a letter in the Time of Truth
And told, Shall you take this tapestry
O king of heart
Courageous boy, excellent boy shall take away
breaking down the Hardhanu
I too became lunatic listening to your flute
The Padma is dying- the peddler went away in the winter of Magh
The tri-cycle was buried in the flower garden
I paid ice-cream for ten paisa as bride to Byangoma
So that he describes a new fairy tales
Of Kashbon King and me.

Remnants

The comfort of looking at the loving face in the evening
The field devoid if grass and broken lamppost
Are seen on the dark depth of his eyes
Stripped shirt, on the folds of shabby hairs
Bashful eyes filled with tears
The grass
turned enriched with water
Nobody knows whether that face is desired or not.
So many Umraojan went harassed, so many persons died
Still today the grasses were twined in fairy tales and gossips turned up
The eyes that dipped into, the mind mingles with mind
The newly grasses shall not describe their story
The damsels who told their endings as fairy tales
Newer melodies shall sing out their tales.

Lamentation

Those who were present on the day of yellowing of the tree leaves
The dove who sang parting song in a very odd tone
Their names were not written in the fairy tales
Only the stories of princes and wicked queens are there
The pale old man who went to buy groceries with bag in hand
He didn’t return again
The prince returns but not the old mendicant
The mum listener of the evening assemblage
Never criticized anybody
In summation slanderer speaks out untruth words against him
The demon queen does not die
Unkind retaliation of the Nature only
Create squall on unattached trees
The leaves turn yellow
The history of downfall shall be written tomorrow.

TAPAN BAGCHI

Sense

Long terrace of time paints your name
Geriatric time haunts me
My beloved is more than my expectation
Poet turns irrational in his creation.

This laughter, songs, all the paints and brushes of my bosom
Touches my tastes, lips, eyes and heart
Only pique lefts behind, assurance of love
How can I fill the basket of time?

This garland of words, lovable melodious songs
Some comes to light, some remain obscure of senses.

In this city

Who is happier than me in this city today
Under the lime sunlight of late afternoon, a hint of ruined moon
Is peeping like a veiled bride
This is the first meet with me in new identity.

Everyday I make error in lesson of numerals
You knew, but added your lovely life with me
Mistaken bumble bee, was it too offence
To search for in last night

You are my desired face, image found in dreams
I surrender all the submission of my heart in your name
I was wake late night feeling fragrance of flowers
There’s exalted preparation of coming of Falgun in this city.

Guidance

Anil Datta used to teach me Bangla. When I was trying to complete the last phase of my school, he was an avid student of teachers training at Dhaka. One day I got his letter with imitable handwriting through the hand of Nikhil postman. Teacher Anil wrote to his favourite student, `Keep on studying, Son. Concentrate on religious practice’ I failed to make out of his letter at that time completely. I couldn’t find out the relation between education and religious practice. I couldn’t had courage to ask anybody about this. Though, to show respect to teacher Anil or to get better marks in the exam I tried to memorize answers of religious subjects. In the final exam I passed the exam with distinction marks.
Still now I am sitting for the final examinations everyday. I have many answers books strewn all over my table. Still now I secure distinction marks in all the examinations of religion, but I couldn’t pass. Now I can make out the moral of the advice of teacher Anil gradually little by little.

SHAHNAZ MUNNI

Secret Murderer

How pathetically the dead body remain lying in the bed of blood
On each sapphire moonlit night
Sleep-lover women are murdered in their bedrooms
Their blue green and pink dead bodies
Mingle mutually with moonlights

Somebody have planted seeds of terror in the thoroughfares
The dreadful trees are scattering panic spreading their dark branches
The world has turned out to be friendless,
minds are engulfed with contempt

Lamentation and anguish have been prevented long ago
The Crimson Sun came down the horizon
Our scimitar have pierced into our own bodies
Alas, our progeny are stepping on our flowing blood
Regrettably, soft skins are suffer the ghastly rays of the Sun

When you speak out, we all know all, groping into the darkness
Then, the secret killers inhale the same air along with our children.

Nobody is waiting for anybody

A lonely tree and a bunch of grass
Are registering the rare history of fallen leaves
Come down Goddess of Happiness, valiant Aphrodite
Take me away from this alienation and sufferings
Give me some touches of your charm at this quiet striking evening,
My flaccid heart have shades of rejection on it
Somebody has taken out his mask and fled away
Everybody is moving, all of them are seeking the right path
Nobody is waiting for anybody else
The sorrowful grasses have wrinkled up in loneliness,
The trees are wailing singly
In this wintery evening you are taking away
All my movable dejection and dark-faced pain
I’m releasing all my breath gradually suppressed under the roots,
in the unoccupied meadow
Suspicious hands of my close friend assemble
And blood-drenched feline is chasing from behind
I am searching a little darkened concealment to keep me under cover.

In this profound rain

My heart is soaked like a piece of wet paper
You desired a part of it.
And in this rain you floated a boat
Made of leaves of Nageswari or Chhatim.
in this rain, the morning is drenched
And is spreading the dejection of grey night
You wanted the remaining light of it
Let the darkness of vagina remain in my soul.

In this rain the lightning has shuddered in excitement
The earth is lying flat, like a nude woman in the desire of acceptance
Take up all her shivering.
Let the weeping be hidden into the secret emotion of the cloud.

In this profound rain
Sodden heart are torn into pieces like drenched papers.

SHELLY NAZ

Transformation

Wee little girl is maturing, I see little caterpillar is turning into
a butterfly, the bed is becoming smaller.

The large sky started to enter into the little window
The blue frocks are turning into crimson.

The small hillock, covered with green foliage, winding alleys,
Her eyes are full of dreams, the giant clippers are calling,
The blackboard turns into unintelligible scribbling
The green apple developed blood red scratches
She looks for magic lamp in her discarded boxes of dolls
She can not tell her mother that she wished to become cloud, or grass
The self-destructive girl has developed love with an out-caste

The narrow alleys turned into a broad avenue,
full of meandering maze
There is no baby-cycle, there are giant trucks and large pot-holes

There are many weird incidences, inside the body and around,
Her soft feet pricked with sharp nails
Every things is changing, socks, childhood stories, books

I let her anklets and say, go anywhere you like,
Break down all the hindrances before you,
Move out with great care, dear, this path is smeared
with tears and blood.

Out-Caste

Women guides the universe, they are the performers of the stage
They are the boat of Noah and kites in the sky, torn, blood-drenched,
They sprinkle waters on Shiva-Lingas, domesticate the wild elephants alone,
Send letters in the Spring, In the dark kindles light on their timid lips.
They’re soft chandelier, they’re the enchanters of your musical soiree
They surrenders to your desires and needs, hundreds of waves on their skirts, there are death-yearnings in the sharp trench
False mirror-room, women are focused through your bosom
All the hours revolve around the women in your hands
From the Hills of Spring, the moon-beams sprinkle down in the tents of women
You float away in the insincerity of waterfalls, women are
wonder-working nectar and cream
Expert diggers goes on digging deep into the women,
still they are untouchable.

They remain in the centre, the eagles went of fighting uselessly
Men dissolve down all its powers into the valleys of women
Women are the ocean, on their bosom, the men are all impatient, waver the shattered vessel.

MURSHIDA AHMED

Winter Midnight

A midnight of winter
Thick woven quilt of mist
The river weeps for a little warmth
Sudden premature rain.

Every addition does not have pleasure of creation
Dried leaves or winter fall down one by one
Tearless weeping is rapt in the trivial lexicon

Its time to search roses of touch
One by one sprouts up poison trees

Deadly venom is sucked up in breath
Thus the winter midnight passes on.

Death, too is like human beings

Not as a treasure of love,
Was taken up as a trump card
Was not a wealth, but turned into property
I wanted to be wealth
I wanted to be a rhythm of heart
Crimson red blood
Deity of daytime and dream of night
But I could become anything at all
Couldn’t be a treasured riches of one’s womb
Or a nurtured tree of the garden
Or somebody’s jewels
Who will cherish me inside, like a throb of heart
Shall make me daytime deity of and dream of night
But I turned out to be vomiting seed of anguish
I am now sold in the human market
Signed as a slave, and then
Like a pack of bloodless flesh I pass my days
My brain is tormented by the swallows of nightmare
Even death behave like human beings
Does not embrace like a dear one.

A Grave of Unwritten Poetry

I will join the parade of light
I am now behind the closed door
Blending moments depart by like this
The Sun id still in its youthful stage
From morn to night– never falter a bit
Tree with roots devoid of moisture

Vegetation is on the way of obliteration
I’m behind the closed door
Eyes of exposed poem is barren
Burden of obscurity
Bleeding in the brain
An large cavity over the ribs
Wind of grave permeates the cavity
Nobody will come from behind the closed door
with stretched hands
There’s no shoulder for support
Where this burdened head could be kept
There remain no belief in the bosom
Where beating of heart can be heard
I can not be able to go to the parade of light
Unwritten poetry will be buried in this side of the locked door.

KHALIL MAZID

Water Banhur

A drop of water, you have brought at this flowing river; you have exposed my emotion, one drop of water have you summersault through my skull, flow down straight through my neck to black vertebral bone; you’re water, only one drop, go away dancing, and do not care any of my desire, whereas my dream burnt up, postures of your dance twist me in my nerves; the water that condensed in the Arctic, only one drop, you’re body less, but remain static on my back, whereas I search for The Knowledge, and turned into Atish.

My childhood is exposed in enjoyable uproar, you still have creativeness of silence a meaningful creation, liquid cymbal rings out through golden desire, rain and Dahuks arrange dance sequence.

The water compresses with thoughts, one drop only, condenses with notion, it rolls with body full of feelings, as if the songs of old alley in the boat of procession of bridegroom.

One childhood catches up its boyhood rolling in the courtyard, running and memorizing lessons; and gradually crosses the boyhood competing with the rolling cloud, grows light mustache under his nose; and then develops into a cunning thief by reading detective novels and stealing up the time; Water Banhur.

Lonely Assemblage

We went out to search for a tomb of a honest man
Truly we look for a dream of a truthful man
We know, truth is but present, there’s no grave obtainable
We find Rarhikhal, strewn Sheuli flower
A noisy talkative rendezvous of white words;

Time is being stolen in a blind dark tunnel
Who said, who?
The grave is but a black-stripped white tiger.
This is our time, whether it is a bud or a black
Nobody dared to ponder
He termed time as a matter of ancient times
But time was a black panther
And its sounds, is the pretense of time;

The keepsake of ancient times covers up with
the wails of present time
Who knows, who?
Death is the procession of question, tomb is his lonely assemblage;

Who dared to call lean-bodied girls, Radha
The dreams are pierced by the eyes of black panther.

For a few generations we carried on
The meaning of a few words
The curse of blind panther remained behind us
Who ever could looked at better, who’s it?
Whose grave lies under the tree of Bakul,
two pieces of books.

MANIK BAIRAGI

Cultivable Land

Kala Fainya1
Hundred years ago, in the beast-frequented prison of British Colony, the freedom fighters had to live with immense torture, now in this free island today belly-dancing thigh-shuddering damsels spread charms all thorough the charming figure.

On the Raben Island of Atlantic Ocean hundred years ago in the school of black revolutionist, the messenger of world humanism Nelson Mandela developed himself bit by bit during ten thousand days of twenty seven years.

In the royal court room of Mangdu Shah Suja came Alaol and then Kashim Raza from yellow hew of Feni Aqiab Penang Flower dissolves the honey-resonance at present uproots the race and plays festivals of massacre In this game of chess the community of Rohingyas turn shocked, whereas the world conscious remain mum.

The interns of the Guantanamo Bay prison wait a few more days
The Wall Street movement is creating the primary cause of breaking down of American chains
Raul Castro is moving fast
The Americans shall escape
The address of liberation of human beings
will be decorated with flowers.

Let all the prisons of the world turn into the address
of liberation of mankind.

1. Andaman Islands
God’s Despotism

Like mountains, rivers, ocean, like flowers, birds and trees
I also have faith on Allah and the Prophet
Trees consume impure breaths of human beings and burns itself
Rivers carry away bit by bit all the impurities of human beings
I also become adapted like those.

known some of the rules and regulations
Imposed beliefs and doctrines
I’m also the watery addition of myself
Both-sided sharpness of systems and conventions cut and bruised in public
The wailing of bunches of roses that oozes blood
Whereas in the fictitious place called heaven
A stream of sin flows on
For times immemorial, disposers descended on earth
The disposers take benefits of the rules of dream-player

Nobody took advantages in the name of Alah and Prophet
Still the God’s silence in Afghan, Syria and Palestine,
Agitates me, sniveling wells up from my bosom
At the despotism of God.

BINOY BARMAN

Word-Nectar

Words are not nectar, poison
After exhaustion of power, the words expire, like stars
After the soul departs, the frame of words are left discarded
Oh, the wailing of meaningless words
The stories of hunting grew in the ancient caves
Fossils of sounds can be found excavating the deep soil
Somebody gave words by mistake
There’s oozing of blood from hard rocks
Light-thirsty days, in bad days, crave for
Star-filled nightly sky
To remain standing on your feet doesn’t mean you’re alive
Do you think moving your tongue mean talking?
Bougainville bloom on the courtyard of lips
Desires gather on the blood
Tumous grow like land-devouring rivers
The words truly can die
They are not fake like death.

Night thief

The smiles scatter around like pollen
The butterfly-morning weep with the soft touch of fingers
The evening has became intoxicated drinking Red Wine
She is weird thief wearing sometimes in sari or in bikini
The eyes steal breaking in from house to house at night
And keep those in almirah or safe
When the eyes get dream-stricken, they return back to their owners
If the eyes get lost, one develops insight
After getting back the sight the blind turns into destitute
Between the eyes, there’s a safe piece of no-mans-land
Beyond the eyes ultra-violet rays ooze out continuously
Can the chastity of love be protected with meetings
The land is drowning in tears, the dwellers of Greenhouse wake up!
Nobody tries to wake up in fear of breaking up
Of dreams in the ghastly abode of present time
The shades of stars make infections in the fluffy darkness
The theft-desire grow up gradually in my dreams..

MUJIB EROM

Labour Room

Before the birth, fear my body was decorated with Broken plow, rotten fishing net, smoke coil up near the door. Father’s aazan can be heard with the crying.
I was the wings of fairy, why did my father shredded the feathers/
I never was alone. Was a child- with some baggage. Sometimes the children are pet of goblin near the banyan tree, in winter the fire was all around the bogs, and were in safe distance.

At night the owl make deviant cry- towhit-tuwho. Mother spread seeds and yellow food stuff. In anticipation that the gnome get scared!

A bunch of ghostly sheep dig out moonlight on the midnight courtyard. Brickbats are thrown on the roof of left-side room, the gab-tree turns vice. My mother feared if I get ghastly omen! My father couldn’t buy kalibaus fish. Lest the elf of Shewra-tree comes down! The old tamarind tree was sawed down.

How could you make fate turn back, Mom? I’m not a child now, the wings of the fairies have disappeared. With hundreds of worries saptadinga now roam around the city.

Enchantment

I bought an albino duck in fixed price. I’ll colour it with abeer and release it in the swamp. With it, there will be bad omen and ill and trouble.

I caught cat-fishes in the upstream. If I fail I’ll tie a knot on the claws of the birds. On tree-leaves.

In the evening shall take out threads taken out from a new sari and a few strings of long hair and utter hymns. Chant a few mantra on Birni rice, a bawl and a blade and expect a successful result.

In the market day, I’ll break new pot on the three-way path, burn red chili, some twigs of old thatch of the roof and bark of tree on the fire.

If all these seem failure then I’ll get nude on the dark night of new-moon. I’ll bring out old water-weed with roots from down deep of the lake. A newly burnt skull from the burning pier. Shall run naked breathless for hundred seconds. Because I know if I look back, I’ll die.

There’s nothing to fear. With the successful application of all mantras of submissive her face will be turned towards me.

Evil Eyes

The girl next door glanced at me. For this mom gave me holy water to get rid of bad omen. She hang charm-labels on my neck. Old mendicant used to take away red cock. With it he happened to take away all the bad auguries.
Even today my mom recites scriptures to get rid of premonitions. Brings with her- salt, water, soil purified with scriptures.

Am I still a child, mom? Haven’t I drank from your healthy tits? Then why do you get scared? She looked at me in a different way, that sight permanently excites me.

OBAED AKASH

A bunch of Rainy Days on my shoulder

I couldn’t make out
From whom I got such a beautiful greetings
Everyday I go not hunting cranes
And come back with dead duck on my neck
Many people wanted to buy those catch at high cost
I look at their faces and smile and mock at them.

Today I came out of my house and
Dipped into the Rainy water of the pond
I hunted drops of Rain one by one
I collected bunches of jet-black clouds on my cloth
And then when I return
I had countless game on my shoulder
In my childhood days
We used to catch fishes under heavy rain
Today I wait in expectation
]Let’s see who comes up offering high price
To buy shoulder-full of Rainy days spreading their hands.

Relation

We are only three of us in the family
My wife on one side and thin soft hand of my child on the other

They say, this me, I’m more precious in their history
Than a boy or an aged person.

In the upstart garden of my senses
Once they saw countless corpses of birds and thought
If all the leaves of these giant trees falls down
Then they sleep under the trees like corpses

They open up my limbs and linking those
with their bodies to find relation among those

They sometimes catch and collect male fishes
and female fishes and pile up
Then one day dissect these papa fishes and mama fishes
With those of child fishes
To find out some kind of close relations.

I tell them, that the fact is
There’s nothing called relation
All these are only the dexterity of hands and eyes

Each relationship is primarily singly repeat into connectivity.

TANIA HOSSAIN

I would not tell you to love me

I would not tell you to love me
I’ll just tell you to open the windows of your heart
And open all the doors of your love and hug me

I would not tell you to love me
I’ll just tell you to sit beside me
And tell me for just one time that you love me

I would not tell you to love me
I’ll just tell you to build a dream house in your heart
And build a paradise of love in that house
And let me live in that paradise forever
No one except me will be there for one moment

I would not tell you to love me
I am now telling you to love me
Just saying that you I born only for you
My life is only for you.

I would not tell you to love me
Just telling you to be mine forever

Do you know, what is love?

Do you know what is love?
Love is a kind of disease
Which does not have any medicine.

Do you know what love is?
Love is a kind of fascination
A delusion where one forgets the time

Do you know what love is?
It is a burning flame of two hearts
The flame which no one can blow out

Do you know what love is?
Love is blind darkness
In which no light can create illumination.
Love is a game
In which, there is pleasure and sorrow
But there’s no triumph or defeat.

Question

He asked me, did you saw Liberation?
I said in reply, ‘Yes, I’ve seen
For the last four decades I have seen the release of corpses of innocent-hapless people.

He asked me, have you seen Freedom?
In reply I said, yes. I’ve.
Freedom of enduring stoically all the misdeeds
Sovereignty of being tortured in unperturbed way
Liberty of destructing the nation through conflict of power.

Have you seen emancipation? He asked me.
Yes, I’ve seen.
Poverty, lamentation, wailing of childless mother,
Murder, genocide, rape,
Bloodshed, ignorance, immorality, adultery,
Vulnerability, arson, plunder,
Pain, distress, – all these are termed emancipation, isn’t it?

At last he asked me, do you dream?
I said, I dream every night
Whenever I close my eyes, I see darkness.
Darkness in everywhere.
Impenetrable dejection on all sides.

ROKON ZAHUR

Love Drops down

I won’t return to the abode of happiness
Pain fills the destructed heart
The story of openness.
The feathers of birds drop down from beauty
I look at the tears – roll down
Speechless . . . .

The happy-bird flew away
The abode of happiness fall apart
The Nature becomes unfaithful
After going out of the destination
Leaving aside everything
You remember me.
The after the happy-bird flies away
I remember
The image of happiness
And memories that were lost,
Left behind . . .

Sometimes pain aggravates
I return
Carried away by the wings of birds
I traverse from one memory to another
Sometimes mist
At times cloud
Now and again a river
Sometimes it oozes down
In love . . .
Expectation

When I think of you
My eyes fill with tears
Before the flowers bloom
they fall apart.
We can not make them return again.

When I look at the mirror
My hearts fills with freshness
I offer my love
And invite you
With the newly blooming of flowers.

Coming near the stream
I return back
I saw it many a times
Being a river one more time
Come back
As a boatman beside the river
I am waiting for you.

In the Baishakh Evening

Never told you to come
The gust of wind breaks down
The houses
The mind of human beings split apart
Unmoved to eternity
I sit tight
In the evening of Boishakh

I never compared with anybody
Never
Ever
The scorching fire burns up
I don’t know how much I can endure
I only know you don’t
Have boundary to move

Before burning down my body
I know I have to burn my conscious
How much attraction there is in the conscious
I never knew
Still I wait- You’ll come
In this Boishakhi evening.

KHAN NURUZZAMAN

Theory of Kite

Kite-game is to bring down the sky in my heart dragging it with kite. I’ve bound the river, cloud, flowers, waves of spring,
happiness and exaltation with kite
Kite is torn, the spool lies on earth electricity
is on the back of the earth
A man is but a kite!
Is a kite is but a sky?

Theory of Voyage

Apple Earth
Extended journey
While travelling
Human beings returns to himself again.

DUPUR MITRA

A few Poems

1.
Somebody have to come beside the banks of the river
He has to take up seeds scratching the beds of the river
In the evening breeze he has to sing a song in open voice
He has to control the river and get the hero
The river-damsels will come to bathe in the water
Steamers will wade through from far away land
One should bow down on the feet of the deity of unknown lands
Whole night they will wail like sirens and then fall into sleep
Newer babies of the villages on the banks of the river
somebody will remember while learning to swim
in the childhood days
Will chase the submerged rainbows and
Angry clouds from one end to another.

2.
After crossing the avenues
The area has now developed a lot
There’s many house developed
There are shops
Educated people amassed
Foreign goods are available
Newer people are now very happy
Lots of happiness assembled here through these avenues
Only those who are older citizens of this area
They do not go to these avenues
They fear
Those who go to these avenues get lost.

3.
One day you will know after the train leaves
the station remain deserted
The Shop-owners start chewing pan
Hawkers rest a while, sitting idly
The station master talk smiling
the River that flow beside the station
Cool breeze flow from there
The birds gather on the nearby trees
Sings
Only we, whom we call ourselves people of the station
Their heart remain unoccupied
They remained static, looked vacantly, dejected
And they pointed at the leaving train and say to their children
‘Look, there comes another one.’

5.
When a helicopter fly past the town
Many people look up an look at it
As if they desired to fly up above the sky
They desired to become free of all hustle
One day a helicopter came flying in the sky of our remote village
Then nobody ever desired to fly in the sky
They longed for some food
To be dropped down from the window of the helicopter.

6.
Today when mom cleans her son’s body
With soap and water
Then I recollect my boyhood days
I thought
If only all the mothers
In future years
Could clean up the bodies of all the children
Fresh, spotless and sparkling!

7.
Make me a scare-crow in your
crop field
I want to be beside your love and caress
All through my life
And want to protect crops of your fields
So that no bizarre tricks and artifices can destroy your crops

And you can sleep at ease
Unhampered
Cuddling the crops.

KALAM AZAD

Bullet-pierced Map

The Sun is about to set. New moon appeared in the sky.
If the stars return back
Nobody will stare at the sky
Wayward wind breaths on the island of darkness.
In the window appears the untimely cloud

The map shiver in the western desert-wind
If that poisonous hand pierces bullet in the heart of Green and Red

In the electricity light the traders’ city illuminates
The Sun seems to be one-hundred sixty million people
The blood-red line that appears on the crimson Sun seems pale

In the Eastern rays the imperialism will be burnt to ashes

SAFURA KHATUN

I’ll Wait a Thousand Years

After a long endurance, a sudden spurt of rain
The lingering of salty tears of eyes
Are wiped out for desired relief.

I seek for a handful of serene air
Shall breathe to my heart’s content
I desire for a timorous peace.

I desired a piece of shade of white cloud
And feel a congenial feelings
I’ll spread my end-part of sari to my heart’s content.

I’ll buy a vibrant kite
And tie on all my dreams with its thread
And fly away all my bad dreams.

I will wreath a garland of Bakul
Then I’ll forget all my past memories
Fragrance will make me remember.

I’ll wait a thousand years.

Someday We Two Will

Someday We Two Will
Reach the peak of hill
Shall breathe in the pure air
And blow out all the painful sighs.

While picking up the shells from the sea-beach
Frisking shall dip our knees to water
And abandon all our sufferings in the salty waters

On the roof-top we will drench in the moonlight
Collect all the purities on our stretched palms
And throw away all our putrefactions in the sky.

Asharh Damsel

It is raining with tapering and babbling sounds
A lonesome Kodom is drenching, hiding between the leaves
At times the leaves are shivering suddenly
It seems that the green leaves, with great care,
Are hiding among themselves,
The sodden figure of the rainy damsel.

The honey-bees are flying airborne
Wanted to take ample advantages
Sparkle of yellow and white
The glittering shade of drenched bodies
Attracts more
Shivers with shame, feel hesitant, tremble,
As if, feeling the strange touch of somebody unknown.

ZUNNU REIN

When I’m in my Solitude

I’ve nothing to tell you
Only I can call out your name

All my words turned out to be you
All my sounds were engraved into you.

I do not have anything to tell you
Except to pronounce your name . .

To Abul Hasan’s Loneliness

I spoke out first that I’m lonely
With that proclamation I told many a times
that human being is lonely
After that while playing, whenever I won or I loss
Or I couldn’t play, I came to know that I am a loner
I knew many a times in my life that I’m a loner

Now as I speak out I’m a loner, it turns out to be true
Earlier all my lonely known beliefs unite
to announce with my loneliness
And when I say I’m loner, they cling to me and say,
Why do you sometimes go on in hiding?

Someday, I’ll have fever

Some day, I’ll have fever, like death-throe
My pains will scuttle like fierce hurricane
All around me
Then I will remain standing, or sitting
Leaning on my languor.
May be I’ll lie down spreading mat of tiredness

Some day, I’ll have fever, like death-throe

ANJUMAN ROSY

Sun Ray

Rays of Sun is lying on the courtyard
The green has now become jealous
They can not expect any favour from Summer
Now it’s distant from Winter to seek warmth
Now its scorching, to turn everything into carbon
As the Nature feels like it

Still let’s have sunshine
Covering all the corners of the heart.

In the Season of Fever

My abode is now in immense darkness
Wrapping around with dense dark cloth
I am dipped into gloomy obscurity
I remain hiding in fear of human beings
Only keeping my eyes remain alert like cats
And observe secretly.
Movements, conversations of people around
Their sorrows and happiness and
Weird movements of their bodies.
Oh, how interesting observing people furtively
They are human beings, and positively me too . . .
But we create division among ourselves
Under this light, in this darkness.

ARABINDO CHAKRABARTY

Paraphrase of Ocean

My mom taught me, it is not bizarre to lie on ocean bed

Not being the offspring of a Kaibarta
We live beside the river, I’m the son of a potter
Throwing the fishing net in the depth of fate
Papa used to catch from deep down
Vast amount of curiosity, diurnal food-staff

Everybody has the knowledge of winning’
We can get loss
My papa used to row his boat against the current

The eyes are the latest edition of ocean
I got the paraphrase of this idea
looking at the face of my mother.

Death delight

Oh what a bliss in death – what an excitement
The musical game of snake and weasel

Thousands of soldiers are aligned around me
They all have blood thirst in their eyes

In the lifelong dark tunnel if I get golden light
Who doesn’t starts dancing; in whose heart
there isn’t lion roars

On which coin death is imprinted
Aladdin should smile if he picks it up

If path heaven is made enwrapping the death
After all the happiness stairs of Hades opens up.

Through this eternal path I will wade through
With the buds of Kodom.

A salute of yellow sari

Your instigation made me standing alone
O sorrow-faced girl, I give you a salute of
Yellow sari with red border
The river that flew away in my palm boundless
also have open secret of globe-trotting
He can drown in the glee of DJ and FM.
Look, with the sorcery of boatman Niranjan
It is still standing erect and
I too is the centre of ten sides of the globe
Around me goblins and gnomes skip Kolaveri dance.
Water game smiles. Chastity wants to touch the
Blooming of flowers morning.
Whereas I am an gold-winning idiot
I light up the firefly darkness in this field of celebration.

BIREN MUKHERJEE

One day Proximity to Death

Blue water crushed down on the lids of eyes – blue bubbles, neurons of brains are breaking down crash, crash, mist-fairies are walking past to the celluloid; undulating hilly paths, to the darkened moonbeam crossing the barbed wire. severe migraine, tick tick tick tick . . condensed waves are vomited up from the stomach, dotted body is dissolved with the sizzling smell of anesthesia.

Touches of beautiful white nurses, brilliant chorus my living self covers with joyousness of blunder, time passes on with the snow-white curiosity of the aristocratic clinic.

Proximity to River

Looking at the river I suddenly remembered
You also had the curiosity to see the river
flying your aanchal of your sari
The river is the dear girl, you would stand beside the water bank
Listen to the melody of water; and with vague grammar
You hide yourself under the fathomless water!

Sunshine dazzle on the lips of your foolscap eyes
The afternoon-sun made friend with the river
Flowers of Autumn is with the geography of cyber cafe
The cities speaks timidly

All through the ages the human beings and river move side by side
They intermingle with each other in an impartial accord.

Your face fly with unruly moonlight

Golden glow of Autumn blend with the evening hours after the day ended. Your face fly in the wind mingled with unruly moonbeam. The body of soil beacons me from far away- the unthinkable emotions of crops; time and again they stoop down to prayer through the green muddy path. At the wailing of fruit-bearing tree the awaken dream-children start returning flying, the nightly treasure is with the bodies of untouchable clouds- they wake up with swimming through the water, on the mist, the moon and the geography of the eyes of the fishes- I walked through the rain-drenched unruly moonlight for a long period. The poets always engage in playing with the words . .

I own earth write down on dark canvas the drawings of sketches. On my eyes I feel cascade of sleep. Secret dialogue-images when lengthened the scenes of nightly sorcery everyday. Afternoon of butterfly and feathers of blue peacock forgetting the intellectual secretion flies your face and flying images. . . .

CHARU HAQUE

Progress

How many years shall you go to the path of deep fathomless journey
Preparation of the Earth shall come to an end
And time and again many years shall you pour immeasurable water
Girdle of beauty, bottle of the child, drenched kajal
Lost ways will play the flute of dense shade
The avenues wake up and hubbub turns sober
I didn’t thought that you’ll sing the song of fire
So I didn’t made up my hairs, obstacle in the hide
How many years the Earth will move through hard days
Shall this world decorate in intense Songs

Day of Blooming Jui Flower

Scrawling of this pen
Painting such picture
All the songs of flowers of partition
Shall all these live long?

Shall dark dense cloud
Float over us all day?
Shall the language of prayers
Suck up all the language of heart?

I know nothing can be spoken any more
This heart is but deception
This is the history of heart
Shall faith be found here?

Nobody Like You

Nobody else loved me, like you loved
Nobody else, like you
looking a flying birds, told me,
Look the birds are crying, evening is crying
Muddy house also weeps.

Nobody else, like you,
Looking at the miserable village
Full of thatched house, said,
‘This is my mother.’

Nobody else, like you
Ever pierced opened my heart
And discovered
Green wings of parrots, mother’s bosom
And deserted chin of Madina

Nobody else, like you
Nobody else, like you, Oh . . . . .

HENRY SWAPAN

Shamsur Rahaman: In a Little Mag.

After returning from moon, the astronaut smeared all over his body darkness . . For a bunch of poems
I couldn’t sleep
So many drowsiness engulf me! In little mag.

Whether dreams lie on the cheek of dream
You’ve gone back to practicality at waters strike
Whole night the sewing girls also sees dream

What’s if its morning next day; Whether all of it will turn into gold ore?
Then, is the antic metals lying next to steel bears no value?
Though the word enters by piercing a hole by any means
To the honeymoon bed being a lump of fat beside a lump of fat

One need to wake up the sleep of mine
Makes one listen the ring-tone – the death-enlivening song
That glass with heavy frame. You stood like a orb
Behind the glass
A golden-bright moon.. . .

The rest of flying Birds

I advanced half the way: the rest of flying birds are
taking flight to Chandrapara.

Nearby a shelter was open
At the list of bright full moon; approved light
Ate along with soft rice and some vegetable
Free-flow artistic life
monotonous and the boundary.

The beauty of insects; are hidden behind the barks of trees
More inside the darkness is sucked by you
How could you be unnatural happiness?

Through the sweat-drenched body
The age dazzles if looked at
Dark asphalt bites up the fire to be melted
You’ve kept the belief- at the signal of the saints.

In the Nightly Boat

The tide comes down endless- the speed of light or electricity
is still to the front

Tying up the cast making it dark.
The white cloth for the dead body
Flows down as bright coverings.
It will look nice with vast wide river and field
The shade of water of the pond
the waves of youthful bodies will hide
In the depth of the bosom.

The fishing net is hauled up in the night-boat.

MANIK MOHAMMAD RAZZAK

Black Blood

That generation is incoherent wall.
He can only paint the treeless shady image inexpert hands.
That generation is patricidal. Submerges with fraternal blood.
Laughs and weeps without cause.
They are the worshipper of naked foundation.

They are hater of science.
They dare, shiver under the illumination of stars,
They are not adored by their subjects,
Assimilator of bones, hermaphrodite, intercourse-terrorist.
They are delusion-lustre confined imposter.
Sometimes they are unparallel in treachery.

They are unfaithful impatient beasts. Enemy of foliage.
In the disguise of friendship they rob away
neat nose-ring of the lovable sister.
They fly flags of death on the courtyard.
They burns up the whole page of sacred scripture.

They are rivals of fragrance.
Executors of all music and melodies,
They organize the fiesta of fatality by snatching away
the flames of the Bauls.

Epic of Gypsy

Solitary afternoon of gypsy is covered with mist
There’s no red and blue morning anklet on the broadened waist.
Untouched fold of bosom, make-up of nose-ornament
Waterless river is burnt up in the fire of separation.

Radha’s promise is not present in the art of dialogue
Nondestructive Time devoured all the tunes
The steps do not have melody, curves of body is unhappy
Awful lips have hungry eroding delusion.

Happiness of moon is not there at night,
Water body do not feel the purest fragrance of darkness.
Lifeless courtyard of creation does not have any submission.
Plain harsh life solve the negative equation of time sitting
beside the hearth.

No prince comes near her in secret
Mockery peeps through the wrecked folds of the body.

The more you burn

The more you burn the more perfect will be
the smoldered body. From neat image the boat will be born.
Unendingly full brimmed river will travel in the emotion
of Fagun days.

The more you burn the golden bosom of that gypsy
The more curiously fly the sentiment of Kirtan
The brilliant fragrance of Bishakha ever more in this heart
Shall play endless melody before the saplings

The more you burn this stolen land of mine
The more fertile will it turn and hilarity pervade into
the colours of ocean in solemn luminosity.
In unmindful monsoon caress shall paint the neck of glory

The more you burn the more poems will emerge
The more eliminate will be our misfortunes.

NASIM ZAHAN NINA

Mummy of Flower in the Golden Coffin

If I stretch my hands, you turn into sky,
but when touched to bloom like flowers
I never looked at you, nor glanced at your shadow,
nor the lyrics of beauty
I vowed I would look for you again and again
You remain unmindful during these days, like fancy smile.
She does not know she look exquisitely beautiful, when in bloom
Stupid flower knows to bloom and to emit fragrance
Only a short time has been allotted
for blooming and emitting fragrance
For this there is a golden coffin and grave of grass
Why there’s smell of incense as it bloom?
Is it is dead more earlier? Only the time remains of shredding down
You live with absorbing poisonous insecticide in you
Butterfly, honey bee too sucked poison from your bosom
They too will be thrown to the museum of rejection
O flower, tiny flower, short-lived, destitute,
absorb poison on its bosom
You have to face judgment of time
You become a mummy of flower in the golden coffin.

RAHMAN HENRY

In Some Full Moon of Dole

Crispy, like melodious romantic songs of some Hindi films, the moon-light are flowing past the bosom of Chaitra; wind is sitting drooping in that far-away field, on the aerial roots of banyan tree, pathetic Gazals of Ghalib are strolling in the veranda collide with each other; proud drifting moon-beam of this night dim-lights of the night-bulbs took leave. The nightly dusts fly over the clouds; and drooping clouds bend down somewhere at the far end of the field, near the brimming water of the swamp . . .

I could easily see, your sleep-less locks of hairs sometimes becomes unruly and then suddenly turns very timid and tame. An indolent curled-up python is lying lazily in her dream-less sleep; let her breath of sudden awakening, take me away to the remote distance, where a pair of birds, are, like black-n-white image flying tireless . . flying away. . . flying away.

At Ashulia Road

I shall not go to Ashulia, I couldn’t go, alone. The road that was there, it turned to our satisfaction, I saw: has turned upside down, has moved towards an unknown destination, where hell beacons opening its fiery door. On both sides blue and reddish trees, emitting froth of fire, the birds breath release acidic pungent that creates the pure serene air unhealthy. That night, what you have given me, what I didn’t gave but tried to, let that be unspoken. What I wanted to say, remained unspoken, were dedicate to your ears; Ashulia Road knows everything. You are not to blame. I won’t claim on you; all things relate to oblivion; forgetfulness in eternity in human life.
Never again I shall go to Ashulia, there poultry farm will be set up, you can go, alone . . . Go and you’ll see, not the chicks but countless embryos of abandonment are coming out of Calvinator. The cheerful machine-damsels , tryst-thirsty; never ever longed for pessimistic cinema . Still in that night of twenty-seventh, they have all gave birth to distress, in that Ashulia Road.

The Day of Khandab-dahan
(O Bird, my lonely bird)

Even on the momemt of burning let the song remain non-ending
On the beaks of bird; let the pride of spread of wings,
pious and eternal.
Let the day of Khandab-dahan return again and again, in Bangla,
like ancient scripture
The beauty burns down, the bird; O my beloved.

Whose ensign flies on the top of the tree?
Pale barks and skin of whose heart
Turns crimson amber while burning
Whose drooped skeleton of love reflects
On the eternal sky, dead or wounded?
Let that be, let that be ever, all those query
Only, O bird, in your beak, crimson painful colour
Smear up, let time of parting stare at it.

RANJANA BISWAS

One night of Desire

One night of many a desire
Skeleton of moon rises up
And sets again
Behind the clouds
I’ve seen him
Timid, like a sparrow
Clashed by storm
Spreading its wings, was lying
On the ground.
May be you took it up
In both of your hands unending sky
Golden rays of Sun
Fell on our body
When time elapsed
Shall anybody gets
Taste of some new time
By churning older life?
Its human beings
That turns to be birds
Becomes sinner
Pouring down love
Turns out to be a sky like Rabindranath.

Mantra does not work now

At one time with the effect of mantra
The snakes used to rush to the pot of gypsy
And for this act of happiness Hasmat Ozha used
To grin showing his teeth.
Now the mantras do not work so effectively
Shaajan Baidya’s Rajmani amulet
Are left discarded
At Hunger’s place.
The snakes have now became desperate
The snakes are more poisonous
No mantra now works at all.
Democracy
Kingship
Socialism
No manta can diminish the poison
Miserable human beings are now python’s food
All the Behula’s still are expert dancers
How could the Laksmindar live?

I see my own corpse in dream

In my dream, everyday, I see my own corpse
Fingers
Nails of feet
Are crushed under the wheels of trucks everyday,
Everyday in road accidents
Lumps of brains
Here and there clotted dark blood.
Brainless skulls are strewn near the feet of stray dogs
That lay beside the road
I hear the wails of terrified people
Haplessly I speak to the sky, look.
I speak to the destitute earth, remain a witness
Only you . . . to you
I can not say, never
You don’t have to open one
Window-panel, Never.

SHAMIM HUSSAIN

A Different Perspective

Merriment rose in my heart
Did the leaves of the trees, birds know it . .?

I heard the legend of blind fisherman from
The farmer who waited in the field with burning torch in hand
I listened only that much which I had the desire to listen
I didn’t know more than that

The artist who painted on the canvas of straw
Taking colour from the crimson crown of the cock
He went on Wednesday – to manipulate the geography
Bet never came back not even today

Merriment rose in my heart
Did the leaves of the trees, birds know it .

The Emptiness

The wind is gyrating whirling round
Gyrating with dusts and storm
Filling up the emptiness . . .
And our gloomy nature is
Entering into the outer space.

Feelings and
deafness are flying in the wind
Fruits and fossils
With the crushing of the wheels and incessant rain
Everything turns to destruction

The wind fills up the emptiness.

Dance

If you are the head
I will be the legs
I will walk to your head with my legs

I will devour your head
And hang the skull on my door

You’ll dance headless
I’ll dance with my legs

SIPRA GOSWAMI

Words and Poems

You told me
My spoken words are poems
Is it?
Do I have that power
You have immense ability of love
So is your benevolence
At your vastness of your thought about me
Make me weep
Sometimes I laugh
You have bestowed a lovely life
You have filled you desires with richness
I pass my time feeling you all the times
All through my hours
I worship you
My human life is meaningful
With your touches.

To You

Not a bridegroom
Chosen from the self-choice meet
Nor a friend taken up from pen-friends list
Not even a star
Flickered on the Eastern Sky
Nor a friend from the
Short-listed Face book friends
You’re my evening lamp
Every evening I’ll place you
On the pier of Tulsi bush
And I will rebuild myself
Again and again under your light
And shall see how my fate-line
Re-develops itself again and again
With your touch.

Relation

I wrote a poem on you
Sang a song
Painted an water-colour picture
Took a sunbath

I am ravished getting you
My heart filled with happiness
I’ve fallen in love head over heels
Every second is happy hour

I stare at the window
‘To see you in the rainy-afternoon
I look for you pushing away the cloud
I desolate deserted corner

You have kindled lust for life in me
So my heart sings
This affection, you know
Shall not vanish forever.

SIRAJUDDAULAH BAHAR

From this side of the barbed wire

Kinkarpur on this side, Satitala,
Mahimaganj on that side with all its past glory
River of barbed wire in between.

I come to a halt as I reach Satitala
As if I hear some painful wailing-
And I also see around the funeral pyre decorated with sandal-wood
I also stand hapless among the congregation of priests
Beside the river of barbed wire
Before me smolders the widowed body
Under the fiery flame.

Doomed Cuckoo cry out flying through the trees at Kinkarpur
And silent Mahimaganj remained static with all its past glory.
In between, the river of barbed wire stretch far like drops of tears.

Roumari 1991

From the observation tower
Bullet and Binocular are on guard simultaneously
The man walked and moved at the barbed wire!

Is it a human being or a poet!
Standing in between life and death, facing lonely awkward
Fearless, unconcerned
He is ignoring everything with utter indifference
The state, society, association
and even the family.

SUBRATA AUGUSTINE GOMES

Lips

Suddenly your night penetrates in my brain
Like mercury-cloud, and I’m, a sleepwalker snake
Enter into the unseen cave, in the rows of crystal column
Bunches of raktagunja bloom, I break garnets with my teeth
I become dazed I found myself at last
In a slumber-ridden island, In the crevasse of granite knoll
Droplets of liquid fire – droplets carbon,
On two soft silent lips are, forbidden door,
If I would have made one moment’s delay in stabbing
That moment would turn into – endless time
Loosing my toxic – teeth
A rocky-storm build up
And a yellow earth descend down through the crystalline wall
And changes its figure time and again and transforms
From one image to another.
I see Hector’s corpse
At Helen’s Troy, See veiled prince of Kapilavastu
On a fast galloping horse, moving fast to far-away
I see at Xanadu, Great Khan targets deer’s eyes, a golden empire,
Of Midas, of gold or Of hunting, of himself, everyone chases
For the navel of deer, tiredness engulfs the stones
And their timeless transformation, search for two lips,
Which are not of stones, of water,
that erupts from the deep faces of stones,
I kissed that lips only once, without the teeth
Did I get response? And then? Have I turned into stone?

Photo on the drinking glass

I learned about fear – the fear of Gethsimani’s garden
Offspring of Human beings do not know,
the fear of anything can turn hideous
And make nerves numb altogether, so that you’ll feel
That the newlywed bride did not tremble with beauteous desire
Besides, in three worlds whose face is beautiful and who is ghastly,
He is with me, beside me, as if a shade, he is most closest
His harmony rings on my heart_ as if
A girl’s heart came out on bosom
Like a solemn slumber, as if like half a mile I cross
Through the terrible muddy path
To the pier of Baubazar in front of Ichhamati
At one instance I turned into a fat dragon
And twisting on and on and slashed into dust
Did I thought, I thought once that
You will lie down on my grave like this?
Did I know fear will make you so pale all on a sudden?

Sight

Today water is pouring down from all over you
As if a water-filled doll was pierced with bullets
Today whole night water is pouring down from you
At the glare of one fiery-egg everything is illuminated
Time is making hubbub with length, breath, and depth
And what a noise is there that everything turns to be chaos
To night hidden melodies of my blood are coming out
not Sarod, not Mollar, something like Bibhash
They all turn out to be crimson with your blood
And I’ve become a floating Vina
As if the pathless Arc of Noah
My last island sank like a setting Sun
And all my structures
Turned out as thirty green birds
After that seven eighty six vibrant star fishes
And on the water floats the Creators giant eyes
More sanctimonious than the new-born
More infallible and honest than death
Dense than night.

TUSHAR PRASUN

Missing apart

I keep seven buttons with me;
I close them, open them at my own wish
So I am not confused about full moon and new moon
I am scared about myself
I’ll not know where I’ll remain in the village
It is not my body, but a chandragolap
Bunches of petals are falling apart, and small fractions
The breaths are coming out, some return back
Boarding the carriage of time.
Sometimes frogs and snakes forget quarrel
And go out to catch insects
And returns again
Whereas I retain my additional body
By shutting up the buttons with great care

He wants hostility . . . wants to go away
With the tease of not to return again.

Masters

O Teacher, Are you Omnipotent, that you call out our names, and we go forward one by one. Sitting on the back bench and raise our hands, as a lazy student of eternal century. Polishing up into Masters degree, still not polished up, Is it then you sprinkle dusts on the water of my knowledge?

Evading the classes, I learnt, hiding behind the wall, how the dark rose of launderer smear the theory of fairness. I met with the Ashard and Shravana, openly, what I learnt about rhythm, I sat solemnly till evening. Waves devouring moonlight, I wash my navel in the river of next door- Teacher, turn both of my eyes into cataract.

The divers drank all the waters and slept
Immense wind of my lungs want to blow the flute of Shyam to make him awake. Under such pressure why send me to the water carrier, Can I wash out the dusts of the bodies of beauty-drinking girls with my masters figure.

AYSA JHORNA

Nature

There’s no watchman today, the sky is clouded
There’ll be rain.
The girls and Yogi wore Crow-blue dress
They also desired rain
There’ll be rain drenching the body.
The pages of Bible will dance dreadfully
The avenues will have traffic-jam,
Cars will move creeping
White-mendicant grew pallid and
After the storm . . .
There’s rain.

Enchanted Crowd

The girl smiled and its exception
That there’s large sweat-drenched crowd
The life of filth and dirt covers the faces
Of these human beings
Guarding their path the girl smiles,
That’s it, dumb, still its true.
I couldn’t recollect the face of that girl
Or I didn’t see her before
Memory fills with rhymes of pain
And remain roused up with gangrene.
Returning from the festival the people goes to town
The commercial buildings crashes down
The crowd slips back.
Behind all these the girl still smiles
Didn’t she attend the festival?
No. When everybody returned, then starts
Her journey towards the festival.

Golden Bird

When I spread my hands towards me
The eastern sky turned crimson
The city-dwellers search for their lost dreams
While dwindling between their sleep and waking.

Mounting a camel
I move towards the desert,
windy and sandy wilderness
And we are looking for the golden bird,
Starry blue sky and the soul.
Who are you residing in me, O sorcerer!
A witch or a female gnome.

Oh, my heart is dancing spirally
But the day I went out in search of golden bird
The sky was clouded
The lambs were running towards the wilderness
When the storm rose in the cocoanut grove and stopped
A celestial light is seen
Spreading on the household.

AKHTARUN NAHAR ALO

The Windows

Open the window of the Eastern side
The room will be bathed with soft sunlight
You can hear the chirping of the birds
If you open the Western window
You can see a large crimson coloured dot
On the forehead of the bride.
Open up the Northern window
You’ll smell the gunpowder
And wailing of the corporeal soul
On the Southern window
There sits a big barn owl
You can hear the wind howls.

Love You

If I don’t hear his voice in the phone
The clouds of the sky will turn black
There will be incessant rain
The avenues with turn into speedy stream
There will be hunger-strike
The darkness will be become intense.

If I don’t hear his voice in the phone
The Sun will appear at midnight
The heart will burn in his absence
Lying inert I’ll hear the whistle of the night-guard
The clock will go on ticking
I can not feel, when it is morning

Still I’ll love him
And I’ll speak out,
I love you.

FORKAN BEGUM

If I don’t meet you my friend

You haven’t met me O my friend
In this errant wind of Falgun
You were very close to me
And was dearer to my heart

The leaves of the tree drop down
\Fly away with the wind
I can not pass my tine
If I don’t meet my friend.

The flattering wind of Falgun
Does not satiate the desire of my heart
There’s nobody, except you in my mind
I can not pass my days alone
If I don’t meet you my friend.

MALEKA FERDAUS

My World

On how many endless words
In the bosom, remain awake
The blue lotus, in the Sarobar of memory
Sometimes the huge waves of Ocean
Breaks down the coastal area.
I hear the tune of destruction
Limitless darkness
Flooded with all
Love is my world.

Window

At present in my window
Images of blue sky can be present
From far away floats
The fragrance of a story,
Suddenly I turn into bird
In white wings .
Leaving the city of dust and clouds
In far unknown place .
Sometimes I float dream raft ,
Sometimes I am secluded and lonely.