Yet another new year
Is back with the old baggage
Of fears and cautions
Prejudices and bigotry
Lurking shadows of
Diseases and death
They tell us
To hang on
To seek hope in
Science and prayers
Look for silver linings
And healings
Lost love
And musings
While prejudice kills peace,
And pride our compassion
While hate spreads
Like wildfire
Our comforts get
Traded and sold
While we lose our voice
And rights
Like Jesus
Or phoenix
Maybe they will rise
Just like balloons
Filled with their breath
Those little street urchins
They bear testimony of
Our collective failures,
Our naked emperors
Maybe their balloons display
Everyone’s lost smiles!!
#2022
Category: war
Disbelief
We stare in disbelief
At life that slips away
Who knew just a breath
All that it takes to be alive
We stare in disbelief
At all the lives
Washed ashore
Becoming nation's memories
We close our eyes in disbelief
When we cannot take it anymore
Confined in our safe homes
We turn into living ghosts
We stare in disbelief
As humanity fades away
We who love wars and winners
Are the tired vanquished lot
We stare in disbelief
As leaders trade away our lives
And our deaths
To build their empire of glory
Storm and Me
Did what it can
Shattered my existence
Where do I begin?
How do I pick these pieces?
There is no ground
Under the feet
It’s all water
The roof over my head
Has blown off
Whatever I held close
Simply floated away
Some with water
Other with the wind
How do I get my life back?
How do I prove I am me?
How do I show?
Where my mud house stood?
It’s all gone
Either with water
Or with the wind
Did you hear howling winds?
Did you see the waves rise?
Those uprooted trees?
My uprooted life?
No, you wouldn’t notice
You were all locked in
Blind and deaf
Till they cleared it all
There is no sign left
Of howling winds
Of broken homes
Of my lost past
I too ask
Am I me?
amphan #cycloneamphan
Spin
What kind of a spin is it?
What goes around, does come around
Yet, its never the same!
Laws teach nothing is lost
Yet, much cannot be retrieved
The top is also below
A walk on the mobius strip
In a world so self-similar
Nothing is familiar
For – What is, is never,
What really it is!
What we know, is actually,
Only the depth of the unknown
And that bond also decides the drift
Stuck on a blue planet in a vast abyss
Where war literally is sold as peace
I wonder,
What kind of a spin is it?
Lost Humanity
Scavenging under the rubbles
She looked for humanity
It was yet another day of
Strategic bombing
They tried to flee in vain
From guns and grenades
And bombs
And landmines
And beastly men
Death was everywhere
In every form
It caught up with all
Even those who escaped these
Troubled shores
She kept scavenging for humanity
Under the rubbles
Of the wasteland
Many died
For the sake of few
Who wanted to live
It was a lost battle
Under the rubbles
She scavenged
For dead humanity
The Blue Door
There is a blue door at end of the road. People say it’s the door to the happiness. One can hear laughter and songs, but no one is ever seen crossing the threshold. Neighborhood believes that all the peace and happiness has got locked behind the blue door. No one knows who has locked all the joy away but the sadness and anger that is left behind is quite palpable.
As one walks down the road, one can hear screams of the locked lunatic sibling coming from an attic of one house. They say he lost his mind over a girl who was forced to marry someone from her clan. From another house one can hear heart rending lament of a mother whose only child has gone missing. A misogynist cop rants and screams in the other one, ordering his wife and children who tremble with fear. A young girl screams hysterically in the next one whenever she hears a footstep, “They are coming for me. Save me.”
The town has a church, a temple, synagogue and a mosque where prayers are held daily. Everyone prays for peace and prosperity that they think is locked elsewhere behind the Blue door. They all hold each other’s faith in doubt. They all live in constant fear and pride of their gods. They fight and attack each other relentlessly. It feels as though they are compelling their gods to compete in a race to gain the highest glory and power of the land (just like they wanted the children to compete once upon a time). Sadly, they have managed to drive both gods and children away.
After prayers everyone returns to the little hell they have managed to create. The Blue door remains shut forever. In their fight, hatred and bigotry, the town has forgotten that the gods have left key to the door with them – the key that opens only when there is love and kinship.
Howling Winds
It was in the news
Cyclonic storm was on its way
They did what they could
To prevent the disaster
They monitored the eye and the tail
There it was circulating,
feeding on winds
And gathering momentum
It all seemed calm on the shores
Till the waves began to move faster
It came closer,
Sounds of the howling winds
Made it all real
Everyone knew
All preparations were made
All estimates looked good
But there was no way to assess
The damage it did
Young ones quivered in fear
Homeless knew they will be
Unaccounted ones
Lonely man walked on the street
Unaware of the perils
No one had told him to be safe
He took shelter under the very tree
That crushed him minutes later
Howling winds
Harbingers of death
Preyed on lonely, helpless
And homeless
Farmers lamented as
Entire harvest got washed away
No one realised
Storm was our harvest
By feeding Earth, wind and seas
Our anger, disgust, greed,
wastes, pollutants and hatred
Cyclonic storm just churned it all.around
And returned what we had reaped
With anger and vengeance
Winds, earth and sea turned hostile
Howling winds perhaps were warning us –
“Don’t be a bully
It all can all boomerang very badly!! “
Seeking the Moon
I seek the moon tonight
With thousands of others
From my window
Caged momentarily tonight
In my cell window
Moon too looks desolate
And Persecuted
Was I persecuted for
Beholding the Moon?
My parents at my faraway home
Me, at my detention centre
Along thousands of refugees,
Illegal immigrants
And activists around the world
All are looking at the Moon
Moon smiles as ever grimly
Bonded forever to the Earth
Spinning with twined destiny
It tells me
We all need to wait
There is no easy way
To Salvation
And Freedom
Other
Peasants will rise
They will sing
They will protest
They will take bullet
They will save democracy
While we will fret
And intellectualize!
Educated middle classes
Don’t you worry
These whom you ‘other’
Will save your jobs too
They don’t need you
But you do
To reap crops,
Cook your food
Cobble your shoes
Tailor your clothes,
Build your homes
Clean your homes
Toilets and cars too!!
After the revolution
They will still come
And assume their lowly jobs
While you will rot in your guilt
Or die with a foolish smug!
History textbooks will talk of them
But you will be mentioned
As the ‘other’ who let the system down!!
#saynotohate
Time
Time is wrapped
We move forward
But yet in circles
A new beginning
Another New Year
All dots
On the circles
Time is a trap
An endless wrap
Moving forward
Yet in circles
Histories repeat
Dictators return
But tyrant
Time
Beats them all
Let us not despair
No one colour or
One faith can
Rule Forever
Light refracts
Even through
The Prism of Religion
Into a Rainbow
All mighty forever
Will bite the dust
As children of soil
Will rise yet again
Time goes in circles
Some look ahead
Forgetting the wrap
Others who look behind
Fall in the trap
There is no way
Back into the womb
Only death awaits
Ahead
Time moves forward
While moving in circles
Maybe Sisyphus is happy
For he knows
The clock ticks…