My Golden Bengal

Sharp blades cleave through my thoughts
a fire without light flows quietly through the heart.
The air swells with crocodiles of tears,
feathers of flying fish adrift in skybound currents.
In half-sleep, restless souls collapse,
haunted by shadows of unfulfilled ghosts.

Indifference drifts across fifty-six thousand square miles,
as the anxious portrait of Bangabandhu
clings to a wall, too proud to weep.
The greatest poem of our time has perished
“My Golden Bengal,” once etched in golden verse, is no more.

An autopsy begins, slicing meaning into fragments,
blood stains the rivers, red overflows the roads.
A corrupted silence devours the brave Bengali spirit.
Still, gatherings simmer in unseen fire,
as rebellion sweats out its rage.
Tempestuous rivers howl.

The scent of fertile clay mingles
With dreams of liberation long deferred,
Yet the flag bears wounds, vultures circle the map.

I can do nothing, nor can anyone.
Seventeen years have passed. Even the heroes forget.
Once, they stood with red and green raised high,
singing, “My Golden Bengal.”

Now conscience hides in quiet cages,
life’s fleeting years stripped from my hands.
Within, a mother kneels, bare, silent,
exhausted by sterile flames of terror.
Rights, once sacred, are eaten by termites,
and fields where children played
are now playgrounds for ancient, polished fear.

Whom shall I name, the ones who shattered
The temple of trust?
Frightened poets, muted thinkers,
all silenced in soft rebellion.
Everywhere, millions of naked clay dolls,
skeletons entangled in octopus limbs.

No light remains.
No joy, no sorrow.
Only the crumbled body of a lifeless history,
And I, still breathing within it.