Imperialism
You engineer ruin
in endless sequences—
because power permits you.
A forest predator,
all teeth and hunger,
you erase whole herds
in a single breath.
Soft faces dim.
They turn away from the world,
learning too early
that the earth does not claim them.
They leave behind
a quiet, exhausted sigh—
for you.
But beneath the silence,
something ancient stirs:
a volcano,
red-eyed, no longer asleep.
When it exhales,
the air itself becomes flame.
Lives—small, unnamed, countless—
collapse into ash.
Life begins
to answer life.
And when that day arrives—
tell me,
what language
will your eyes speak?
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
10 April, 2026.
The Ruined Flower
A broken flower rests on the table.
Some flowers, even in death,
remember how to breathe
fragrance—
but this one
has learned fire instead.
Its petals burn.
Its thorns speak louder
than any beauty it once held.
It trembles—
and something unseen
detonates across the room.
People come close,
drawn by love.
They bleed.
They fall.
They rise again
with raised hands,
learning resistance
too late.
Still, they return—
to the same flower,
the same mistake.
Some errors
do not remain small.
They ripple outward,
shaking the architecture of the world.
A crooked table
never truly stands straight.
And some of our mistakes
bend time itself—
until generations inherit the ache.
Generation after generation.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
10 April, 2026.
The Strait of Hormuz
A narrow strait—
yet it carries the weight
of entire histories.
It maps routes,
spins dreams,
tilts the sky
on its axis.
It sharpens minds—
and ignites wars.
Cities burn in its shadow.
Ports rise and fall
by its permission.
For a passage this small,
your dreams and mine
are undone—
then rebuilt
in some uncertain future.
It is a bridge.
It is a wound.
It speaks in opposites:
fire, then rain.
famine, then peace.
And if we could look away
from the imperialism of Hormuz
that surrounds it—
perhaps something quieter,
something untouched,
would still be flowing—
clear,
beautiful,
unafraid.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
11 April, 2026.
Apiculture
The world—
a vast apiculture.
So why does a planet built on honey
taste of poison?
Why do we return
again and again,
with bitterness
coating the tongue?
Why does life itself
stand on the brink?
Why do humans
turn against humans—
with reason,
without reason—
as if destruction were instinct?
Bees do not forget their order.
They gather,
they build,
they sustain.
But we—
creatures of thought,
of language,
of sky-reaching dreams—
fall beneath them.
We grieve
for an ant crushed underfoot,
yet raise our hands
against each other.
We were meant
for something gentler—
to sit side by side,
soul beside soul,
in a world that could have worked.
Since the first dawn,
the stars have poured out light.
They have never
rained fire.
Then why do we?
At the summit of civilization,
why do our faces
still bend in shame?
Why does war return
like a habit
we refuse to break—
border after border,
generation after generation?
What kind of progress
carries this depth of ruin
in its shadow?
And in the end—
this careful hive we have built,
this architecture of survival—
may be the very thing
that calls forth
our collapse.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
11 April, 2026.
Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.
Once when he was in grade ten in 1990, his Bangla letter was selected as the best one from Deutsche Welle, Germany Radio that broadcast Bangla news for the Banglalee people. And he was given 50 Dutch Mark as his award. They would ask letters from the listeners to the news in Bangla and select one letter for the best one in every month.
From 17 to 30 September, in 2018 he received a higher training in teaching English language in Kasetsart University of Thailand for secondary level students through a government order from education ministry.
On 06 November 2015 he achieved Amjad Ali Mondal Medal for his contribution in education field by a development organization in the conference and felicitation function for the honorable personalities at Rajshahi College Auditorium.
On 30 December 2017 from West Bengal in India he was declared a ‘Literary Charioteer’ in Bangobandhu Literary and World Bango Conference and they awarded him with a Gold Medal in their International Literary Conference and Prize Giving Ceremony.
In 2018, he achieved Prodipto Lirerary Award in Prodipto Literary Conference at Kesorhat, Rajshahi for poems in Bangla literature. He received honorary crest from the administration of Chapainawabganj District Literary Conference and Cultural Function in 2021 and 2022 consecutively.
His poems have been published in many international online magazines such as Juntos Por las L Raven Cage Zine, and Area Felix. His poems have been translated and published in Argentine and Serbian, and he participated in many international online cultural meetings.