Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 3, Number 1. May 2020. ISSN: 2581-7094
From my Nest…
If opportunity has us
waiting….
If opportunity has us
waiting:
We would have strode briskly to the goal
With ardent and zealous hearts.
And hands agitated for action with change.
Our brethren would we call to come
And join our freedom march
Up the 5th Street and 4th Avenue…
We would march chanting defiance tunes
That will usher us in a new Jerusalem.
Then we will demand liberty to national coffers,
Zero impunity to murderous bull frogs,
No bail for thieving rats
As for the chef:
His apron and leave is our right.
Then in the kitchen republic a new order shall we set.
If only opportunity had us waiting.
We would have strode briskly to the goal
With ardent and zealous hearts.
And hands agitated for action with change.
Our brethren would we call to come
And join our freedom march
Up the 5th Street and 4th Avenue…
We would march chanting defiance tunes
That will usher us in a new Jerusalem.
Then we will demand liberty to national coffers,
Zero impunity to murderous bull frogs,
No bail for thieving rats
As for the chef:
His apron and leave is our right.
Then in the kitchen republic a new order shall we set.
If only opportunity had us waiting.
Nurturing the reading culture.
The seeds on the ground laid,
Should be trusted like a maid.
Then they will flourish and bloom
If given enough time and room.
So is the reading, a culture we should but nurture
Then we shall be a rand richer!
Listen, listen my dear good people.
We are about to scratch our big pimple,
Even here in public, it matters not.
Oh, good people please take note:
The reading culture we should but nurture
Then
a rand, we shall be richer!
Take a book or two,
It might be you, you and that one too.
Smile at it, devour it all
Thus your rise not your fall.
Aaah, so if we, the reading
culture we but nurture
Then we shall be a rand
richer.
A step forward is a book
read.
Even with eyes blood red!
Higher and higher up you go
But those who read not cry:
oh no, I am too slow!
It is the reading culture
we should but nurture
Then we shall be a rand
richer!
Reading unlike drinking has
no age limit.
No special certificate or
even a permit.
Why don’t we all but
ourselves arm,
Then fight the war, NO
HARM.
Thus we demand, the reading
culture we need but nurture
And we shall be a rand
richer!
When you reach Heaven…
Everything needed, please do tell us.
Ways
and sources from there provide us.
When our time is ripe,
With goodwill shall we march.
Don’t forget us, when you reach heaven!
Explain how the walls of Paradise look like,
Their pattern and colour.
If you can ask the architect
It will be of our benefit.
I pray forget not when you reach heaven!
If flowers are found everywhere.
If honey really flows like the Mississippi.
If lions and lambs graze together.
If no one dictates everything.
Enlighten us when you reach heaven!
Look at their ways of trade and commerce.
Analyse their wars if they have any.
Judge if their corruption is more than ours.
See how they deal with their women;
Then send us news when you reach
heaven!
When you present our tears to the Mighty One,
Add that the Haiti earthquake victims are still in pain,
The ever-warring Iraq, Sudan, Palestine, Somalia, Israel..
Tell Him of the nuclear plans of Iran and the Koreans.
That is if you reach before us!
Broken Wing…
Mum, today I saw
From its nest a birdlet had fallen
Its Mother wasn’t home;
A distance was she,
Busy looking for a meal.
Mum, today I saw
The pain registered on the little one’s face.
Its eyes were red hot charcoal.
Its beak carried more sympathetic a tune.
For eyelids were its that had poured
More that it initially carried.
It had stream full after stream full,
Down its featherless chest.
Mum, today I saw
How pain is freedom’s huddle.
How pain leads to vulnerability.
How pain is gateway to hopelessness.
How pain cripples the victim’s ideals.
Mum, today I saw
And picked the little bird
Back to its shelter.
Its right wing was broken.
It smiled at me,
So was its Mother my presence had
invited.
Mum,
today I saw…
Diary of a
Believer:
Religion of the
stomach…
Where care should have
been;
Stood cactus,
their hands in supplication.
The holy temple
bred rats and bats defecating.
The pastor busy
blessing them..
We washed their
dirty linen
Hanged it dry
then pressed it hot.
Where care
should have been;
Vast fields of
thorns bushes grew:
At gun point we
were ordered:
Tramp the field
bare feet!
Might fell our
feet fall.
Should one
complain; the Cross as shown to us!
Where care
should have been:
As cold as the
North pole
Hearts became
and fit in the new suit.
Lip services
carried the days.
We sung of the
unrisen Christ Jesus.
We forgave but
later hunt our trespassers.
Where care
should have been:
Faces paraded
litanies of the stomach,
Politics of
absolute power and treaties of
Mafias
The temple
Chief Economist’s door was engraved in blood:
OBEDIENCE IS
THE REQUISITE TO THE RIGHT TO EAT!
Deformed, we
simply obeyed our stomachs…