The New Nation - Internet Edition

Free me!

Md. Ziaul Karim

Rain rain, come again

Free me from torture and pain

I mourn as the grace is gone

I fall down muddling and forlorn.

My breath is smothered

I am almost defeathered

Stumbling and trembling as a bird wingless

In the midst of horrific political meanness.

O You! Where are you?

Sit me freely on a bough

My nests are torn, my youngs shot

I know not what battles to be fought.

Let your grace fall from sky

Like hail turning into lethal shots

And rain water like steam-roller

That has the power to moulder.

A refurbished generation will emerge

Purified and purgated in grace.

No barrier will be there,

Everyone will share

Of humanity - a great boon

As none will be a political buffoon.

How much more would you gulp?

Shahidur Rahman Manik

O Bangalee, how much more would you gulp?

You suffered the treacherous acts of Mirjafar,

And you suffered also torments of British kicks.

Pakistan swallowed you bullets to death.

You could knock out the autocrat.

How much more would you gulp?

Better you kill democracy,

blend sauce of it with blood and backbone

of Nur Hussein

and put 'em all in your gulp.

You trumpeted the drum of rumour

You made someone the queen or the king.

When you did not like him or her

You played reversed record and sing

chanting opposite slogan:

Burn by fire - fire - burn by fire!

While you set on fire, you also extinguish it!

What amusement recreates you there?

Someone takes out the pulp of the fruit

While you get the peeled off skin of it!

That's the irony of fate

You remained happy with the peeled off skin

As if a chained goat of the cattle herd

that appears to be happy with husks in a pen.

O the herd of goats, why don't you understand

your own goodness?

Be united, shake hands.

Not to sing miscellaneous songs

But to sing only that song:

Let's love our country,

let's work for our country.

Otherwise

take everything in your gulp,

then sink and die.

· Bangalee, How much more would you gulp ?

· Gulp!

Translated by M. Mizanur Rahman