Swatantra Sonnet 21 Poem by Hassanal Abdullah

Enter with a bare chest. Dear lady, the complex
cage of dress fails to give me the deepest pleasure.
I want naked beauty, like the snake and the tree.
My restless flowering youth thus longs for the taste
of a brisk butterfly. The thorn-wall of wild sex
will depart quickly from our tavern as rapture
unfurls its sweet wings in musical ecstasy.

Not too complicated, true, yet it's hard to find
that hidden nymph—her face and breasts and the unseen
sparks of her sea. A blooming body, shy and fair
in dense forest sleeps fearfully. Approach with haste
could make her stomach flutter—the depths of beauty's mind
might be oblivious. But the field's never been
so fertile— terrifically ready and clear.


Translated from the Bengali by the poet with Catherine Fletcher and Goutam Datta