Poetry
Serendipity
Wake me up every morning as dawn becomes a new day.
WB Yeats’s ‘Easter, 1916’ and Bangladesh’s July 1-36, 2024
What motivated our youth to defy death in order to free Bangladesh from the yoke of a brutal regime?
POETRY / October: An unfinished poem
Glamorous lightweight raindrops from the October sky keep
POETRY / Silence
A star fell on the ground in the windy night
POETRY / Republic of the dead
As if playing a game of chess / Still the world waits for the next dawn
POETRY / Sinking in ink
Don’t you see— I can only write dark.
POETRY / Devi
The first pulse, in the midst of a whipping maelstrom,
POETRY / The wheel of change
Eternity collapses at the wheel of change. / Past is lost
POETRY / Fall
August, marked with dying things. Summer’s end, / My freedom spent
Olives
Seven feet of mud swept water, /Bodies under rubble.
Cleaner of dawn
She doesn’t need an alarm For the last hour of the night.
Hidden battle
Her Kohl-rimmed eyes, dangling earrings,/ The chiffon scarf, the satin silk shirt
I, Whore; I, Birangona
Would it be too much to ask you/ To forgive me for the carnal sin I did not commit?
Soldier amidst the blood moon: An elegy
Crimson blood splattered amongst the ravaged lands
THE OTHER WAY ROUND
What makes You a boy, me a girl; Me a popper, you an Earl?
We’re still alive
We’re still alive/ but they wanted to die a natural death
Diasporic delusions
Self-confidence shaken, some shattered memories in their side bags
My scarlet incarnation
Being a woman comes to me naturally If not me, then who? I was never asked to be one I was never asked to cook
The Black Cat
This is a translation by Md. Abu Zafor of Bimal Guha’s “Kalo Biral” from the collection ‘E Kon Matal Nritya' (first published in 2022).