Poems by- Aliza Khatun

Poems by-
Aliza Khatun
[Translated by: Prottoy Hamid]

The Flash

Again and again you make us stand in the flash.

The flash demeans our sky-
And captures us in that camera! Under the naked roof
Partly we are in the mud
And partly in the exploding air.

And those domestic volunteers
Are leading us towards the humiliation they termed relief.
The ‘Shelter’, a monument for the poor,
is rooted into the swelling lust of looting.

The rootless boys and girls, the dying old
the domestic animals, and insects-
all gather across the road
where the merciful dogs accompany us.

You people are encasing all these as frames
With the eyes of cameras

The food allotted for us is less
The budget enormous
And the process starts with the forecast of tempests.

The papers tell our story
And keep yours secretive.
It is us who become scapegoats
to serve your interests.

Nobody knows the time to be drowned or burnt
But we know for sure
The flash of cameras is always with us!

The Burnt Land

The whole delta is a land of the burnt
Only we see in our eyes the ashes
rising from the bottom of a river of lava.

When the sky was full of fire last night
The animals and the trees
And the roofs were all on fire.
Now our dreams are ashes of coins.

We turned ourselves into fire
And ran into the fire to extinguish it.
But we find nothing but the burnt houses
And deep thirst for a single drop of water.

But look! All the fire was unable to destroy the memory:
The harmony of the religions we enjoyed
and the waters we bathed in together
to freshen ourselves up.