#Title

POETRY

Smoking’s Injurious to Health
MD MEHEDI HASAN
Come,
let’s smoke a cigarette together
on a dark veranda
and count how many flats
are still awake.
Life is a nine-day wonder anyway.
22.02.22
for you, my love
Md Mehedi Hasan occasionally contributes to the Star literature page. He is a lecturer of English at North Western University, Khulna.
The Walls of Our Town
YASIF AHMAD FAYSAL
All these years walls of our town
stood tall,
home to white-winged birds,
nostalgic sun,
tales too deep for us to tell;
last night walls came down
crashing,
hydraulic hands went mad ripping,
no keening no mourning,
only silence supreme reigning
over modernized graveyards,
new roads are hewn clean through
bleeding hearts,
new people walk new roads
suitably clad,
speaking of powerful mandarins;
the walls of our town once
stood tall,
now in the debris of collapsed walls
in nooks and crannies,
at tipsy midnight rendezvous
beside dim-lit shanties,
motley crowds talk of fiscal year,
of money spinning jennies.
The walls of our town once
stood tall,
now they lay like
turtles upturned,
the hush of holy secrets,
our everyday life
forever gone...
Yasif Ahmad Faysal teaches English at the University of Barishal.