They gasped for breath in that dark dungeon cell
A hundred and sixty six men huddled in black hell
In that hole of Fort William eighteen by fourteen
The screaming souls realized next morn wouldn’t be seen.

Two tiny windows were all there was high up on the wall
Slowly passed that night of June hung in deadly lull
Water water they wailed their throats were desert dry
The summer heat poured in sweats as the tears of their cry.

Two women were among them they were the first to go
Suffocated by lack of air their breathing began to slow
Was dying Tom’s fiancée and he wrung his sweated shirt
If could revive his moisture’s drop save life of sweetheart.

One by one they collapsed amid the buzz of death’s din
Begging for a drop of water in despair drinking *****
The dead stood on their feet there wasn’t a space to fall
Survived only forty three men among them Holwell!

In the history it’s known as the tragedy of black hole
With many riddles still misty the Bengal Nawab’s role
Account of that summer night the ghastly horror’s tale
It’s now known was exaggerated by Commander Holwell.

The Fern
A Poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian to English by the Author

I was a seven-story being, covered in  scarce species of a plant
And it was a funeral ceremony
and I was the only single mourner
First I grabbed a gemstone from this very soil,
And then sealed and knocked it over my forehead
I returned and had a glance at my homeland again and I wept.
My father was the phoenix ; My mother a restless Goddess in Shusha and Hegmataneh and on the tomb of
Mordechai
But God was with me
My far-sighted binocular eyes are a camera in  this deep darkness, a whole dark loophole!
And I’m the dumb and voiceless Myth of clashes of spoons and forks at the dinner table
Deity of The Nawab Highway , heading the cemeteries
At East End of this city ... What’s pouring over your head blow by blow and nonstop, incessantly?
What is this entire dirt and filth in thorns and dust?
Which is covering things in a very slow pace, gentle and soft!
What's it like? What could it be?
The fairies had nested on my dark hair,
And I had washed the fairies, drained them, brewed them like rice.
You knew the time well , the moments are lingering, it's yawning and sleepy,
That very frozen moment and then absolute silence
While with my wounded nails on the stove, I was boiling over the saucepan!
When I covered the whole scene of the Revolution Square and erupted like a volcano
Perhaps I had just kept my face pale with bleaching ...

I am the Fern
The Orphan Land
The Stepchild
Fostered Land
Burned,
And forbidden
And infected with all kinds of diseases, fake gurus, lies and manipulations

What has captured your heart and attached you to this land, brother?
The country which has been completely burned, half buried and the other half contaminated with Lead,
The somkes are left...

The Fern I am!
The Goddess of growing wild flowers,
The Lady of thorn and thistles
Upon the sorrow of the Talisman woven into my country,
And how I digged the mountains,
What have you done then?
Only a handful of soil which has been displaced
Makes me bewitched forever
Ashes which have been sprinkled over Bozorgmehr and Yazdgerd and the Great Republic
My ashes which have been spread over the seas and over the far oceans
And I have been resided in the waters of the River Tigris forever
The stale smell of dampness;
The spider which has nested right over my head
And you had foretold all this ,
You had already seen it...

The Naming ritual is over.
Turn off the lights. Tomorrow is a Saturday,
Oh, I will not sigh!
Mirrors have grown over my index finger!
For I have wept the waters of seven seas in six thousand years
And I have taken refuge in the corner of a chair in fury

The sidewalks are deserted.
Passers-by are the perpetual dead
And this deserted Military Zone
Has no longer been residential.

I yielded to the winds
And packed
Giving away my body
And giving my soul to the windshields  
It came to pass in a second when I became a yardbird
A captive for thousands of  years
To the bitter end,
My words were ashes and carbon dioxide; coal...
The Fern is an ill-bred wild seed, off the rails that is not given a name, not called by a name
It's exactly like a lettuce leaf:  not happened to be named,
But it's peeled,
Misshaped, warped and deformed
Why should it be named in the first place?