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In memory of my beloved mother Farida Akhtar

THIRTY POEMS ABU SAYEED OBAIDULLAH Translated from Bangla by Abu Sayeed Obaidullah Cover: Afsana Parama First online edition: April 2014, Sydney

Touch My house is by the wine tavern, memories have become intruders and entering into the brains of the drunkards, the same is done by a young poet lending the language already shaped by others. Candle in their handsthe winter of deep gun-powder and the troops, boot shoes encroaching. After seeing this, the cold rifle is on the trigger the target is pin-pointed, waiting in the coffin of a friend by becoming nothing. Pavilions are not far away this evening, my envy-grenade has become a bird in the Portia tree. I would flee if I were a non-believer, today I am entering into the village of the drunkards, and demanding the rights of staging, and washing the blood-house of man with roses and chameleons.

Murder How a crow kills another? Digs a tomb beneath the stones and my jealousy gets nearer, adorns me by becoming my beauty and sister. I ignite fire in the mind of grass in the family of Adam. Brother Habel youve stolen fathers love and I am dispossessed and in indecision my offerings remain unanswered. The debt I accept as a love and revenge has become my burden you take I take the atonement comes down to the earth and written down in ranches and pitches of crops.

The last house My house is near the Azimpur graveyard the khaki of BDR flutters in the air of the roof. I can see the digging of trench in the parade of army Mans last garden will go under the butt of the rifle. I go shopping in the whirling New Market with vegetables, soybean, seasonal fruit and rain-rose I keep sitting in the Moon-machine rickshaw. My wife cooks in the river of red-green chilli, I feel the spark in the water-mirror to float in the bed. Children are playing ludo and watching Macgyver in the TV. I see the printed image of all windows coming flying to my study table. I go to sleep when the night is deep and dark. The Myna bird flies in the rainy day under my pillow, and the bones of my brothers and sisters Get blended with the fog-screen.

Poem In the full assembly of men Im calling for the fire brigade. The mugger and the mummy-lovers in mens feet wont sprinkle water. The city dwellers will return with lions. I hear the lizards of sounds in their swords. Talking but not talking lest someone sends letter from the mad-house. Ringing feet come slowly by crossing the bridge the Persia birds from the death house fly over the steam engine and sand of beaches. Born again in colour and cultivation the full assembly dies at hunting and abstinence.

Two poems about separation Chittagong (to a red-white) Ive been throwing words across the ocean the shark flattened-words lay asleep on the bridge, the stooping crazy currents, air, fire brigade will take the blood-bed to Chittagong. A Jaguar wakes piercing the sleep-totem the galaxy of Galileo is reloaded with the bemused killing panorama. By shifting track I know that the exchange of language would not end and over the Harbour Bridge no letter would be delivered to the commune -lost Ingleburn. The Australia going aeroplane would droop in the sky by becoming the empty space of the earth!

Station Winter-ikebana in the neck of the passengers waiting, chilled air-pit, straight graphs on the face, sand lines the ice-robbers hide in the lifebox. Yellow lines in the front, the traveller losing the shelter in pavilionis placing his feet cautiously now, he carries the tall sleep-caravan in his armpit. The prisoners of rail-slipper lays asleep with bunches of demon- electricity, each continent, shadow-dot beside the sweetshop and on the top of the bridge. After the end of last sip in the teapot, the train-trodden evening jumps at intervals along with the untiring veranda, which is calling Hazaribagh Hazaribagh.

Immigration What a heartbreaking way of changing ones homeland! Who to dispatch the news? and lodge the protest? Only dull communication and registration, I wonder! All in disguise and low-profiling as if the dervish wearing the face of nothingness, a mendicant walking in the crowd. Oh the air of a foreign land! and the sky is another part of the world! and the love always keeps isolated. In the sleep the falling boat sinks in the ocean!

Hijab

You keep yourself hiding I say Allah ya Allah and put my eyes in wudhu and in a well. The voice you create the mud-violin flows in that notation. It plays or doesnt play the slow peacock and cuckoo your beauty has spread out in the water of ZamZam.

2 And you only go far away, I open the road and fall into stones Maznun and Maznun! So many buildings and pointed wires in my throat even I cant say your name! Your lost button has become a cloud and is flying in the rainy day.

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White poet By zooming a little he watches from his brown eyes and the camera of foreign language the holes in the skin-hair, wrinkles forehead marks of his opponent. The black ant-tribe is writingits pollination in the garden of Asia and Africa. And the skinny fat-cattle the digital image of flooding NGOs antiseptic emancipation, carrying their children thousands of women waiting for relief and Im imagining help me help me sound from their mouth and the mushroom of Bangla poetry in my face!

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Gambler Im keeping eye on the boxes of grapes, a clever coin and race of a ground horse entering into the coffin of Faraon. The illusive magic of women by my side making tigers out of mens horse. The mask-loving fair clown is laughing in the restaurant of little children, their burglars will dance in the thorn of last looting. Whos teaching the language of foregoing life? Whos prophesying about fire and firearms? The waves of snows and diary of river around me, my longevity is lost in the charity box of crowd!

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Poetry reader The water-slippery light house has been seen in the quiet path of menstrual and a rosy smell, the Harem, bone of a floppy tree starfish, bees humming supernova lion-door, the injured marks from the apples reaping. Eternally opened- a vaginal line crossing the medlar tree a moth, a deep prayer for not to be born. After that coming back went back to the retired house of horse, stable where a horse keeper swinging himself like a poet!

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Aquarium 2 The floating shark over my head wouldnt bite me. I want to catch it by my hand it stares at me by opening its mouth with stone-teeth and its deep artistry. The ocean grass asleep in the waterland stirring of the quiet wood leaves- village Bangla! Im certain- the enmity is over now and the joy of starfish swings in the radar of approaching shark. How safe is the future of lost fish only eating and swimming! Your body- flying barb or catfish? The language of commerce is worthless to the tortoise falling asleep.

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Mirror Im watching my face in the much used mirror, the truth in the stories of evolutionist is hanging in the monkeys tail in the zoo. Stains of lost cities, settlements and fires are in eyes and face. The glaciers and the arrow of hunters are melting down the face. You and I are walking after crossing the No-Mans Zone, the queue of children, bugle-horn of empty plates, the wonderful time-game of the Earth, envy of the historyare all going down the hilly trucks like snakes. If I had been blind I would have wanted coins, flickering of lights, and the language of serpent from the Sun. But now my eyes are filled with the evolutionary blood! Wars on lands, besieging, fall on peoples head like eagles. The future of yours and mine chuckle with the death sentence in the dust-laden mirror of the evening light.

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Letter-land The letter pad is packed with dollhouse, bull cart, dusty-streets and nameless shadow-wishes. Red and blue lines drawn across the letter, and through the window of a post office the water-streets lead to the girls school, Exchange of hands in the parade field, the desire for hiding in the body is glowing! After seeing, one suffers martyrdom inside the girls uniforms-- the night-intruder is returning home. The language of deer playing violin, leisure, procreation, sanatorium- all these games are placed in rest in the letter. Longing for a winter-house in the name of a lost football in childhood, Im writing sleepy fog-poems. The fire- violin is played in the psyche-vessel of the land of yellow hew. Water-affliction in the papyrus, the morning bed is getting wet by the black and white rain drops. And the stooping seagulls are yearning for home at the pool. Standing in the air, holding the baby in your hands, you show me the ways by opening your bosom.

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Two Poems for my mother (on hearing her death news) Farida is grown in my little daughter yellow frock, saree, uterus honey birthbowl, golden face, river of hope, loving as always. Ill hold her in my lap, father or son talk to her in the language of Jhum Jhumi. Ill go to the fair in Ameerganj and see railway lines, bridges on the way. The natural pupil, panorama attends the red building under the shadow. The room is full with delight to catch up rains, the little Myna rests under the clothes in the backyard, there is a family of mother Myna at home. Fried lentil soup, bread the white saint- cloud in the Arabic text Ill dive to the water-bazaar with a boat.

2 After the news the car is so heavy as if Im pulling the Earth with it, the air is not propelling at all. The head of the skys falling down the path, Pathfinder is caught in the shackles. Fathomless ditch and tunnels are in my bosom. The heart-horse galloping in the mirage of lights. No more sleep from grass to grass in the ground of Dhaka the work of crashing dust has already begun. The boy who sleeps, take his crimson football with her in this ominous afternoon. Somebody has been thrown into the space, into the eternal orphanage.

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Near the Snowy Mountain

Looking at the snowfalls, I shall only recite poetry, I tell you. The Sita- necklace at the bottom of the White Mountain, Dooldool horse, whatever comes airborne, I tell you. Guards wearing red garments, also show tricks and swiftness of an alien country! The ostrich and cats were about to go. The damsel, getting out of the bus, has a golden pigeon in her bosom. 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 never boarded on the Earth! Their memories of childhood are identical to the supple wine. We complete all our discussion after looking at the route-knowing, wild solitary deer. The path you keep cant be fused with the snowfalls. The shepherds of the black buffaloesshall go a far-reaching way, with the carriage.

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Innocence I keep up my innocence, dear mango tree, you are my kin. I attain your silhouette in this assembly of hunting, as it is found in the perpetual mango-orchard. Shunning tendency turned out to be a norm, Still I sense ecstasy, still I long for L...O...V...E. What do you send from the distance? In the Bishkhali field, rifles of the enemy, and pigeon hunting, these dazzling internment as the hunters at wild. In this overpowering wind a single flicker also has a flowery flame. With all my mind and heart of innocence I keep waiting and ignite the Agar-lamp. I urge you to come, flying from the bed of a flesh-trader and marry me. Everything-- the long coiled necklace, the cinema show-- are nothing but nonsense, as is the idea of separation among the humans.

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You're not shivering, O Carcass Weary herds of cows and market-men left the place in clusters. Mounting religious impulse 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 Carcass! The hair is flying in the breeze how the longing to return, halts the commune 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 somedayin 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 enters through the crinkles of the dresses of girls into the charm of our offspring. You are not trembling, O Carcass!

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Farm house Mind is joyful and communal in the farm. Archaeological fondness grows after watching the udder of the cow. A river-hypnotism in the foam of milk-ripples, the faces sink into the white maiden. The thrown away feather bears the magic of a seed and a protein-tree. Imagine, how a weaver bird teaches us the art of reproduction in the bush! I get tangled with you looking at the natural breeding act, and our future ideas float thinking of imminent schooling. I write a letter, the language of clan in the morning of milking and art of extensive hand-machine. Imagining, how these hardworking cows teach us motherly convention, the dream-traveller of oxen.

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Plassey Ask. Horse oh flying horse, who is floating on your back? Ask. If he is a reformer, traveller or a secret messenger of the king. Ask. Ask. Because there is an assembly of people ahead. Because we need to know, how many houses will be burnt down by the traveller! Ask. Elephant oh brilliant Elephant how far will you go? Or who will be taken with you? Ask. Ask. As we have a dinner time ahead. as we need to know which news will slit the throat of young Khudiram. The horses coming and going we have eternal layers of ice in the oven of villages. The English are arriving, the Nawabs are departing we have our graves, and skeletons of our forefathers. By Plassey we meanwe have a sister begging from door to door, with an empty plate of rice in her hands, and the name of her unborn child is Siraj ud-Daulah.

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A patriotic poem The water has turned into fire. Today is the day when one ignites fire on the bones of traditions-loaded river Jamuna. There is no boat. We make fire by walking on the chest. The idol of street is old-fashioned he is just flying in the air by becoming a half-memory, that is also running fast with the aroma of death. In the great awakening day the travellers sing songs, oh how the water of Yamuna has turned into fire! The fish-rice is blistered along with the golden statues of dolls. You live in the land of Gautama Buddha and your life is full of ashes!

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Lingering Light

Drying up tears, the lingering light emerges in the remote path. As if in the meadow of history the marks of blood in the grass, horse ran away crossing the jungle. The pain of death in the river water; It knows one day or any day will comethe freedom of the world. Men are standing in every corner waiting for the day when tears will take them up to the path of light. Their eyes were darkened; signs of journey on the road. No break from journey these days, eating and praying- all for the next time, dreams are impossible only work and aspirations, the language of annihilation. Thus, one day, warm water rolls down unwatched as if transparent glass or mirror, the deep sleep rises up in night, and stories of song. A man is coming and a bewildered womanalready went away by crossing the bridge a baby is on her lap and the beckons of bread. Drying up tears, this light chooses us and sends the message crossing the sea. The words are very humaneAs if they create a moon on white hair of mother.

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To Fish (Fisherman king on the bank of river) Fish, Im losing my patience. Sitting on the bank of river, oh fish, I lose my faith. You, neither coming out of water, nor watching the beauty of prayer. Fish, fish I am dead. My boat has been destroyed; the black Cobra has snatched away my fishing rod. This night, my daughter is in her puberty. Oh fish show yourself. The songs of rice are sung from country to country, bones of people in the field!... fish you are not coming out of water yet. The smoke in the habitation, the moon is blazing--- fish, fish you still--The puberty will be ended at dawn. We will become barren, offspring less in the shrewd summer. Oh fish, you are not listening at all!

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Red grape Red grape you are my birth-thirst, you swim in my hand like a fish but the way you swim I dont find any hope to dive. Then we pray for the green field we have the story of horse-riding on our back. Red grape, the songs of graveyard in your winter, rains fall onto my brothers body the lingering moon blossoms in his eyes. Red grape we have so much refugee-time, wet fishy smell in the bodies of our children. They wake up to see people are exchanging language, but doing it the way as if their tongues are flying to the sky. And the river is becoming smaller we are crossing the fire, our mother is dead at home red grape you are our my fish-thirst.

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At the Vaucluse Cemetery The poetry of life at the cemetery the winter-air is like innocent child-sleep, and chilly waters spilling out of the ocean. The present and future cuddle people so easy! Im forgetful of collecting coins, only the desire to play the guitar quivers in the air and in the ceaseless grass. The food lovers are shedding fat from their guts in the fire, the rows of Christ-tree on the cemented streets, it does not seem one day they will rest in peace like the friends of the graveyard. How love and the words of affection are glowing like the gentle lights. And the epitaph on the stones is reminding that the commerce of the water-carrier isnt everlasting!

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Warfield Ive been left alone in the bloodstained blanket. The border of barbed wires beside me, how do I own you or steal you! I dont know. The curse of land-besieging on my head the enemy tents seem to be near and far camouflaging rules over the nation and traditions. Everybody is vigilant too much the mind is always tiger and tiger-like. The mantra to occupy countries in my mouth and the friendly rifles next to me, the bombing aeroplanes and the wounded bird fly over me. When will this crusade come to an end? When will the javelin of Abu Sufianpiercing the chest of Hamza will be vanished? Mothers waiting beside the barbed wires the white flag is flownafter the digging of tomb is finished.

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Sad bone At the Balaka cinema building the new bridge reclines piercing the Tagar flower. Shadow stepping down the Moon can see the bench of his house. Water is water and pitcher sitting together in the hotel of the street. Meghna and Jamuna change their colours and flow through the orange juice being poured into the glass. The shish kebab and nan-bread fur of wood-cat, monolith in every man. Boys getting out of the bus to smell the flesh of girls, the electro wave runs in their penis! Through frock trouser and odour in the armpit whose weeding is today? In the meantime the echo of the canvasser ringing, bringing the magic-evening during the clash of roosters. Water is leafwater the vitawater of river Arial Khan. When the fire becomes green after blazing, the sad bone keeps awake by splitting the nan-bread apart.

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On the day of long holiday On the way everything seemed to be tree I made an ikebana with the roots. Looking at the sleeping daughter I feel- a long rifle fired from the radio. She who was cooking and changing clothes her hand is filled with blood-jam and thirsty knife. The way the news was heard the shackles fall first in the chest and then in the genitals. The troops stole the rings of the dead and put them in the pockets of their trousers, and by the cruelty of platoon of soldiers the blue tent, clothes all turned into ashes. And far away from here in our houses each sleep became a tree, and over the night these sleep-trees, its roots all have stretched out into the barrack.

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Baby fish From the bathroom, I smell fish fry. Climbing by the roots, soap-foam in my chest here are the eyes of fish, fins and golden net. In front of me, plastic duck, wooden dog looking for winter dwellings in the bathtub. The soft, soft protein is blazing in the fire, the forsaken, last javelin also making its way through the tunnels of the fire. And a baby fish is fast approaching through the bloodshed and pieces of lipsshredded beside the boats.

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House Coming towards the house with children, petrol and snails of Bondi beach in the saari of my wife. The snake games of McDonalds hanging in the hands of my daughter. The baby is a shell of a maiden! Music brings garden the whole serpent. The houses puffing more smears more water-buildings in the air, lamp, kerosene, plain rubber rice and bed including the last violin is immersed in the marble Moon. Leaving house inside the house chairs and tables, more Moon-schooling, more rivers of waiting for mother.

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More railway lines More bones will be seen, more feathers and flowers-hair turned yellow in the bell of grass. Nibbles from the pyjamas sun-illusion, its dots golden heron, the stirrings of cinemas. The leaves of Medlar by the side who wants to die in this Autumn fire? devoid of water sleep address. The boys are running in the unknown air, cold wax-apple fruit in the Winter-Rugby Ikebana of light-wave keeps dancing. I write a letter, a bone of aeroplane in the envelope the crane minaret. The naked bicyclist goes past by holding the sleepy hinge of the railway line.

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Poet, prose writer and translator Abu Sayeed Obaidullah was born on September 9, 1965 in Bangladesh. Raised in the city of Dhaka, he received his B.A (Hons) M.A in English Literature at Dhaka University. His poems first appeared in prominent little magazines Ekobingsho, Nisarga and other literary quarterlies. Along with few other poets in the 90s, the poetry of Obaidullah played a crucial role in shaping the language of the New Poetry of Bangladesh, which essentially bears profuse faces, seemingly distorted feelings and somewhat surreal aptitude, generating order in disorder. His poems, predominantly earlier ones are- passionately entrenched in the deep roots of socio-cultural phenomenon of the country (particularly his anthology Plassey and Panipath). With time, and particularly since migration to Australia, his poems have gone through distinct changes bearing diverse colours and textures, where one can sense, by reading his new poems, the disposition of both cheering and distressing events of life, unrelenting longing for union with the supreme Being, somewhat in a Sufi sense, as well as the feelings of uneasiness in apprehending the Time and timelessness- in almost a visionary approach towards our queer existence in the universe. For Obaidullah, language is not the channel of expression, but the technique of living the life of integration, reception and rejection of Self as well as the voyage of both vision and veracity of mind. He has the inclination of avoiding conventional style of writing, destabilizing pre-arranged poetic forms and clich subject matters. Rather he feels comfortable with the very rhythm embedded in the expression of language itself, the feelings that assimilate the cadence of body and soul concurrently. Thats why his poems seem to be a flute having several reeds, producing different resonances. Abu Sayeed Obaidullahs poetry collections include- Winter-death and Water-ripples (Shitmrityu O Jaltanranga,1995), Silent-speeches of Balmiki (Balmikir Mounakahathn(1996), Plassey and Panipath ( Palashi O Panipath, 2009), Poems outside of Songs (Ganer Bahire Kobaitaguchcha,1910), White-Saint Clouds(Shada Santa Meghdo, 20l0), Crossing No-Mans Zone (No-Mans Zone Perieye, 2012) and The Temptations of Mask and Hangman(Jollad O Mukhosh Bishoyok Prorochonaguli, 2012). He has been living in Australia since 1999 and teaches English at Navitas English, Sydney. He lives in Ingleburn, Sydney with his spouse, Shamima Nahid, and their three children- Afsana, Rizwan and Myisha.

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