TWO POEMS OF ASHRAF AL DEEN
I Can’t Breathe
I can’t breathe!
I clearly understand that
you don’t understand my pain, because
nobody ever kept his knee on your neck!
You have never experienced and understood
what suffocation means!
under your heavy-handed dealings
I cannot inhale the air I need for survival!
But you kept your knee
with all the forces you have
on my neck and I can’t breathe!
Please get your knee off my neck,
so that I can breathe!
In Palestine, in Kashmir and in Xinjiang
for last 70 years
I am crying, I can’t breathe!
In Arakan for last 40 years
I’m shrieking, I can’t breathe!
In Iraq for last 30 years
I am groaning, I can’t breathe!
In Afghanistan for last 20 years
I am whimpering, I can’t breathe!
In Syria for last 10 years
I am moaning I can’t breathe!
You did not hear!
You did not understand!
You did not react!
You are USA, Israel, China, Russia, India, Myanmar
and whoever you are!
Know it for sure that I can’t breathe!
In the Torture Chambers of Guantanamo, Chechnya and Abu Ghareeb
the painful echos are: I can’t breathe!
You always know when I need to breathe,
but you care damn about it!
You know you are hurting me, my people,
but your soul doesn’t reckon on this!
The human inside of you is dead and
you are superior only materialistically!
So you go for the war as if you are
on a hunting mission in the wilderness!
You keep killing people, cause bloodshed
and think that it’s your victory!
You are still hurting me
your knee is still on my neck
suffocating and killing me!
You are destroying the Peace ‘n the Planet!
By doing this, you don’t gain anything
you rather lose!
So take your damn knee off my neck and
let me breathe!
Let me breathe.
#I_cannot_breathe
07/06/2020
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Born Human, Living like a Donkey
I was born human, but
finally, I was trained and tamed to choose
the life of a Donkey!
I was born as a human child in a loving family. As I grew up, I was taught by my parents
and the society,
how to read and how to write,
how to play and be healthy happy and
a “good boy’.
But, they never taught me how to think!
If I am thinking about the sky stars and the night,
They would start telling me fictitious stories full of lies;
If I am thinking about a snake a tiger or death,
They would start telling me about the ghost
that they have never seen!
If I am worried about the street dog,
why was it limping?
My dad would tell me, it was a bad thinking!
If I am sad
about a low income family child
who cannot go to the school! I ask, why?
My Mom would tell me to concentrate on my own studies, because that’s not my job!
And, I believed her.
When I became a working citizen,
my office give me a routine and some rules, beyond that I had no right to think!
That’s a easy life.
Our politicians would tell us
not to think about the people or the country! We should rather be obedient citizens
and
whatever thinking for the people and the country
should be, and would be, done
by the politicians only!
May be because they are better adept to lies.
Thus, my life was easy and hassle free!
At at the fagend of life
I realized reading the messages from the Creator (62:5) that,
throughout my life I had been a Donkey,
Not a thoughtful Human Being!
It’s a shame that,
I could never become a human being!
Though I was born as human child,
I had chosen the life of a donkey,
: gentle looking, hard-working, and humble,
no reaction agitation or protest!
For a donkey life is
to eat sleep and enjoy!
Even donkeys can dance!
Finally, when the time comes,
even I will die an unwilling death!
To let my brain,
such a wonderful gift,
unused and intact,
get rotten and eaten up by the soil.
Oh! If I could use my brain and be a human being in the life’s mission!
05/06/2020
Dhaka, Bangladesh,
