In The Shadow of Darkness

There is a beast with five heads that rummages the land.

It devours the earth that bore, burning the crops that feed us,

And eats away the season’s harvest;

When the farmer has broken sweat, it breaks his hoe to two!

We are helpless, we are hapless. How can we fight?

When everywhere we turn, it eats the road before us…

The one face it hides in the cushioned comfort of tinted four wheelers,

Without a care for the millions that suffer its apathy

As it feeds on their blood, its talons clawed deep so they won’t run.

It slumbers in exotic silk. Lumbers with exotic dinners-

Not a care to our famished bellies and tarpaulin housing.

The one head wears wigs and boots, pretends to be our friend

But puts us in iron cages each time we cry out,

Stifling our voices with a wild smile at the fall off its gavel.

It takes our sons in the dead of the night. Beats our old men with its sticks and guns.

And then it says, “I am here to protect you”

The other calls itself our voice- its sly arms wrapped tight round its rotund belly-

But one by one, our children die in cold hospitals jammed with the stench of

Hopelessness,

While those who survive are turned to vegetables in the schools they build.

Our produce rots on the bad roads it promised to fix. Still it is mute,

Lest it runs out of promises if it takes away the problems that bind our feet.

The one speaks of hope, wears celestial garments and teaches us foreign tongues-

‘We must keep our peace’ it says ‘this is not our home’

But how shall we keep our peace and bide this home without a name,

When we pay to build its house, and feed it with the sweat of our labour

While we are left with nothing but rags.

The one is the head without a face. The head we cannot see.

Its eyes are as many as ours. Its ears even more, reaching places even we cannot.

It is the thief that cannot be heard. The silent teacher…

It steals away the ways of our people, replacing them with those we cannot comprehend.

It is everywhere and nowhere. It is the heart of the beast!

© 2009

The Guns of Kashmir

Uniforms file in aim
Boots thumping. Guns corking.
Boom, Boom, Boom
Bullets ricochet through the air
Tearing through meat as they way
Shattering, bones gathered amass


We run to the hospital
Injured in hand
Our cause still afoot
Only to heal, only to heal
Our shattered limbs and bones
But still they followed


Dark white walls
Gory with the smell of blood
White coats frantic
Paramedics scurrying
So many injured
So many so young


Crack, splat, bang
Windows suddenly shatter
Canister swarming in
Exploding with chocking white gas


Screams, panic, horror
White coats frantic
Paramedic scurrying
Running, ducking
Quick, take cover


Azadi for Kashmir
Azadi for the people
The chant the thumped on
Our heart still resolute
Our anger sealed deep
Not a pebble we flung


Still they fired
Still we chanted
Azadi for Kashmir
Azadi for the people




“The oppression of a people anywhere is the oppression of a people everywhere”
Martin Luther King Jr.

The Music Box

You peer at me with stone set eyes,

Your nose twitched north in disgust

At the threads I wear to ply my trade

Your tongues roll with articulate slur

Ultimate expression of the creativity of hate

You ostracise me from

Label me the lowest of the filth and scum

And blame me for things I have no power over

But what do you know?

What do you know

Of the curse I have bore with my skirt this while

What do you know of the misery life has cast on me

A 12 year old turned mother

Abandoned at the death of my mother

Left to fend for myself and my little sister

Forced to burry the shame when they touched me

Shame would not feed our famished bellies

What was I to do?

What do you know

About the father who left me to the sun

When he acquired new wife

Were you reminded every waking hour

Of the life that was no longer yours

Turned away from your own home

How then do you stand there and judge me

You for whom life is just a yellow brick road

What do you know?

What do you know

Of the nights I fought NOT to sleep

Too scared to have another dream shattered

Terrified that if I slept I might wake from this nightmare

Haunted by the pain in sister’s eyes

Wondering what sin she had committed

What do you know?

What do you know?

You stand there and judge me in your pulpits

And pass laws to rid yourselves of my kind

Lowest of the scum

Bedrock crime and sin

What do you know?

What do you know

You who proclaims me sinner

And banishes me from your holy house

Where you house unchaste mothers

And applaud suited thieves

Because they give big offerings

You rant against my trade in the day

And visit my stall in the night

Bargaining for the lowest price

When the lady turns out

And yet your needs won’t disappear

Do you know how many marriages I save?

But how could you

How could you see any good I do

When to you I am merely filth

Who are you

That you should call me scum-

Immorality personified

What do you know to say I enjoy this life?

What do you see I enjoy

Is it the rape from the upholders of the law?

Or the bitter cold my thighs must bear

So that I can put food in my belly

What do you know

About the lonely life I am backed into

Or the sacrifice I endure every waking hour

So that my child may have a chance at life

Is my fault for the card I was dealt

Condemned to the street at 12

Spite all you want

But let he who is without sin

Cast the first stone

A beauty from Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 -- William Shakespeare


i am particularly in love with this piece coz seldom does one find a love poem so complete with the full circle and cycle that is life and love. a masterpiece from a master, i can only strive to achieve such aptitude