Poetry by Masud Khan, translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam
The Sun’s old. Deadly rays leak out of its decrepit body, Lashing planets, satellites and asteroids. Fleeing for dear life, humans and animals run helter-skelter. Unable to endure the sun’s excruciating heat, Men and women prepare to move with the Earth forever— Moving with the planet they love more than any other, They will seek sanctuary in some distant young galaxy, Just as bewildered people, uprooted by some raging riot somewhere, Flee far away to some distant land, lives in their hands, Forsaking their country, destined to be refugees forever. One morning, at sunrise, Planets, satellites and asteroids will stare in astonishment. At a nine-planet orbital village, a stellar union council of nine wards, Looking immense, elliptical, though everything else will be the same! Other planets will be in their orbits as always! Only cunning, conniving and naughty earth will elude their gaze! The Sun, that incarnate ball of fire, will be so fiery and indignant then That it will dart out its mile-after-mile long murky tongue Spewing furious fumes of loud hitherto unheard curses, Gurgling lava spilling out from some swollen uvula forever... It will pursue Earth as long as it can, chastising it all the time It will flicker its fiery, thundering, curses-spewing tongue incessantly! As it flees, casting furtive backward glances, Will Earth ponder for even a moment and exclaim: “Alas, what’s going to happen to those ill-fated planets— To Mercury, Venus and Mars?”
Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh (Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania. Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.
Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).
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