Masudul Hoq (Bangladesh)
Masudul Hoq(1968) has a PhD in Aesthetics under Professor Hayat Mamud at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a contemporary Bengali poet,short story writer,translator and researcher. His previous published work includes short stories Tamakbari(1999), The poems Dhonimoy Palok(2000) , Dhadhashil Chaya which translated version is Shadow of Illusion(2005) and Jonmandher Swapna which translated version is Blind Man’s Dream (2010),translated by Kelly J. Copeland. Masudul Hoq also translated T.S. Eliot’s poem , Four Quartets(2012), Allen Ginsburg’s poem, Howl(2018), from English to Bengali. In the late 1990’s for 3 years he worked under a research fellowship at The Bangla Academy. Bangla Academy has published his two research books. His poems have been published in Chinese, Romanian ,Mandarin, Azarbaijanese, Turkish, Nepali and Spanish languages. At present he is a Professor of Philosophy in a government college, Bangladesh.
Elegy: Cox’s Bazar
In the mirror, floating on the chest of the sea
sky built with marbled stone
Butterflies of the cloud and glass bottles
smell of salt rises in the goblet of people.
Shipra, Sifat and Major Sinha-
In search of black diamonds
lying on the beach, the perfume of the clouds
Scattering in the air
Mask of fatigue and safety
Inani road and distant sky
Becomes face to face
Silver color is in the dove’s feathers
Full of foam and
Salty Cox’s Bazar wakes up …
None of us think about the death of spiders
Shipra emerges from the river ‘Chambal’…
The spirit of the forest, touches Sifat …
Major Sinha wants to go to Munipur …
They cover their age with clothes
One by one they are exiled
meet at the beach
We have never heard their blood pronunciation,
Lover’s name
Which sleeps in their blood … sleeps …
However, we haven’t learn the name from the rain of the sea;
We know the taste of autumn and orange
Among those who entered from Burma
Some like our ancestors
brings the market of joy wrapped in paper
We also come to the beach on Sinha’s camera …
The safety mask is removed
The sound of bullets spread …
The smell of gunpowder makes us intoxicated
Yet our huts are being built on the shelf
The wind does not blow and neither do we
He nailed it to his chest
The wind digs our shelter
And we sleep like ants in the mountains of wind
We secretly sing:
Cox’s Bazar is our tent;
Cox’s Bazar is our wall and star.
Ammunition
I don’t know what effect the moon has on people
But people sometimes get to the moon
Turned away from family ,three o’clock at night
When someone hears the prison bell;
Night guard’s whistle
What if the moon is met
People found on the moon turning into gunpowder.
Sufi
The man has become a ‘Besra’
Whatever he feels ,
got the language of expression
The man has known himself
So those who do not know themselves
Are like the people messed in crowd,
The traceless people!
Firing on that man’s body
Recognizes him with light colored eyes!
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* ‘Besra’ : Following the path of Sufism.
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