THUNDERBOLT

THUNDERBOLT
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(1)
The three soldiers so-called guerrillas
Each holding the weapons
One M16, the other AK47
Another the enemy-weapon G3.
On their back, they carried the bags,
Equipment, daggers, water-bottles on their waists.

Wearing the camouflage-shirts,
Marched toward the enemy’s camp
According to the news received
From their fellow people.

The night very dark, the cloud very thick
The stars shining dim,
They left from the Parva Camp
To fight the night battle.

Crossing the streams, avoiding the creeks
They went through the bushes.
Mosquito-bites, insets disturbed,
Leeches sucked, no time to care,
No time to speak, just by symbol,
And in emergency if dispersed
The meeting place is peak of “Deer Mountain”
They agreed.

The campaign is called “Thunder Bolt”
And their password is “Black Cat”,
Fierce surge to fight the enemies.

For food, they used the preserved rice
Mixed with honey and roasted deer-meat,
One and half kilogram for each
Their fellow comrades provided for them.

(2)
They had to march like the characters in the movies,
Accompanied by the dark mid-night.
On the way, they missed the village
And their girl friends.

In melody of love-tune,
They wished to sing a song in high volume
From the top of mountain peak
As when they used to sing
While they wooed their girls in time of peace.

Who is the culprit between love and War?
Love destroyed by the jealous,
Love to live with ones we don’t love,
Love departed by Death,
Love departed alive,
I don’t want to open the love-dictionary,
We have to find the convicts only.
We are just the ones who wish the lovers
To be united, who try to sweep the fields
In self-sacrifice, thongs stuck and in painful silence.

Sometimes, clinching the fists,
Grinding the teeth, we have to fight
Two simultaneous battles,
It is “Love and War”.

When we hear the song
“Come My Dear Back Home”
Tears flow on our rough cheeks,

Even though you may claim,
We are very coward, we don’t care,

Sometimes, men also weep,
Every revolutionary heart is not hard.

(3)
When the seven-sister stars looked over,
Early morning they slept sound sleep,
Deadly tired.
In cover of bamboo and iron-wood trees,
They slept and woke up just when the sun shed
On their faces.

When dawn came, ray-light purple red,
On the top of a far away tree,
A dove sang and an omen-bird danced,
We remembered our beloved.

The stream flowed nearby the hill,
And in its shallow water, we washed our faces
And drunk the water by our coupled hands.
One stood sentinel.

One field crossed, one steep climbed
To reach one place, non-stop marched before noontime meal.

The sun too hot, the head ached,
Sweat-streams flowed on the back.
Very hungry, stomach empty,
Crawling, running, hiding and watching,
When the front sentinel beckoned,
We have to go ahead very fast.

The tarpaulin sheets inside the bags,
The daggers on the waists,
All small things became very heavy
Seconds by seconds, more and more, so long as we marched along.

(4)
So after two days long march,
We reached the “Palm-stream” village.

The Burmese Army was making camp
On the hilltop of strategic view, northward of the village.

The Burmese captain, black complexioned,
With pox-scars on the face, very ugly
Led the front fields,
Very proud and nasty indeed
Like wild fox and monkey.

They were very rude, drank too much,
Intoxicated, voluptuous,
With no shame on their faces,
Begged food from the people.

Very low-breed, of course, dirty and ugly,
They always forced the girls
To work every day and night.
At night they stained their virgin beauty
And I always remember the day when
You came back home alone weeping.

They tortured the villagers, tied on the back
And dried under the sun, kicked behind,
Beat with riffle-butt, by bamboo batons.
Several methods of torture they know,
Many nasty games they played,
By means of weapons they bully us.
Sonsofabitch, indeed, they are.

Very stupid, wicked, crooked,
They killed the villagers,
Stabbed by bayonets, cut their throats
Bury alive, hang upside down
Bloody massacre; shot dead the whole village
And set fire.

The childs separated from their parents,
The sisters from their brothers,
The wives from their husbands,
Very sorrowful and painful,
Strong anguish burst and I became a guerrilla.

I have responsibility to protect our land
From the hands of the intruders
Who are waging wars against us
By extreme narrow chauvinism,
Uprooting our culture, annihilating our history,
Paralyzing our Nation.

(5)
By the helps of the villagers,
The three soldiers surrounded the village
On the 14th waning Sunday of May,
Round about just over 3 o’clock mid-night.

They could hear some dogs barked.
One stood sentinel.

By the news got informed,
One knocked the door of the house
Where the Burmese captain was sleeping,
And on the threshold,
One shot spot on his forehead straight,
He died instant.

The last destine of the cruel is “Hell”.

xxxxxx

The next day, the curls of smoke coming out
Above the “Palm-stream” village was telling us
Of one sorrowful story.

On the bank of the Palm-river under the lucid noon-day sun
The Burmese soldiers shot dead
The village headman and the girl’s father.
Both collapsed clumsily.

Along the rough Palm-river
Flowed the streams of blood stretched far away.

(K. Kyaw)
(4/6/2000)
(This poem was composed on the events of a true story)
Released by All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress (AASYC)