BAITULLAH QUADEREE
Baitullah Quaderee teaches Bangla at Dhaka University and has drawn attention as a Postmodernist poet.
Stop It
Stop it.
Put an end to this passion for clouds,
stop the body’s luxurious current,
turn your eye
towards trees.
Having swallowed up light,
the bird passes stool like a long thread
with a sound like music,
and this too is the song of the earth
diffused over all maladies.
More like the underbelly of a chital-fish
than a slow-moving transport,
the wings of a saucer suddenly
slows to a stop in a field;
on seeing it people rush
and saying it has brought extraterrestrials
puts out their eyes –
it seems intelligent creatures
who came with the intention of settling here
have become excited
over a game of changing disguises.
Bemoaning is on the rise,
the metallic merchant has rolled up his reddish copper eyes,
and wonders looking for something in his navel
with the help of a light-bulb.
Is it the memory of an undimmed waterfall? A foetus?
The disposal of Kamsa? There’s no respite,
coming to the geography of Red
he sees that “geo” isn’t “graphic” at all,
“geo” is quite prosaic actually.
–Translated by Hamid Bhuiyan