Hiatus

How long can I keep postponing the reality
of my senses, social standing and hunger?
How long can I keep fighting a war, lost already,
despite winning a handful of fights here and there?
   

It has been almost twelve months now I’m living on my dreams,
audacious for one from the third world middling class,
fatally foolish, I know, some would rightly say!
Perhaps my poor genes did not mutate properly,
for I know countless men and women too, who are
happy to live a rat’s life to its full extent,
living underground in fear and never too keen
to tie the bell, despite being cruelly victimized,
racing and multiplying like a fierce plague on earth,
to wipe out the planet from the face of the universe!
   

Well I can vent for all I want and call them any names
but perhaps that will only make my sin as grave as Cain’s,
for tonight a dreamer after dreaming his last,
will have to seek his way back to that despised world of rats
and only when he has nothing more to gain or has lost it all
will he return to his dreams with profuse apologies for the hiatus!

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My Sins and Virtues

I have unearthed God through my sins!
The emptiness after my satiated lust
showed me the place of reckoning
and hunger, when it’s brutally satisfied,
showed me the plight of poor billions,
like flocks of sheep, too meek and weak inside!

My virtues on the other hand,
like kindness, being honest or charity
imbued my senses with vain pride and
a feeling of unaccounted decadence,
like the Devil, after eons of
supplication, cursed by the Providence!

So, I have discovered God through my sins
and the horned Devil in my self esteem!

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The Epoch of Illusion

Surely, the epoch of illusion
is onto us, for otherwise
we would not have been so indifferent
to the woes, of the common folks, such as,
hunger, having no roof to live beneath
or enough clothes to retain
the meager heat from those malnourished limbs
to keep their bodies warm and death at bay.

Above those dying ones are the slaves
living off their anatomy
on whose toil stands the life of decadence
that we lead with our private property
but being deaf and blind these we do not see,
nor hear the loud scream of their pain
and we can never realize in our hearts, of stone,
humane ideas like empathy or compassion.

A Mansion to Remember

No one could have overlooked the mansion,
simple from far but lavish and elegant,
a mere five stories tall, though appearing
no less higher than the translucent sky.

A thousand rows of tiny yellow lights
stretched along its edges and balconies,
twinkled like the distant stars and their mild glow
was diffused across the evening haze.

The structure made of earthly things like bricks,
iron bars and concrete mix rather seemed
like another earth from the outer realms
of the known sky, just pausing for a while,
calm and silent though taut like a coiled spring,
ready to leave in the blink of an eye.

Numerous threads of sparkling lights entwined,
veiled the whole stretch of the road from above,
hanging down in slanted rows of forest green,
violet, pale golden and bright cobalt blue.

From the glowing strings paper lanterns hanged
with motifs imported from the eastern shore,
as if to celebrate the visitor’s
delight with grandeur of an epic scale.

Who could have guessed that it was a mere wedding hall,
with such indifference to hunger, standing tall!

The Song for A Homeless Child

It was simply another night at work,
with the usual couple of hour’s rush
at the beginning and near the end of my shift
and an hour’s break within to breathe and smoke.
The break let us descend back on the ground
to have some tea and snacks in groups
beneath the panorama of the open sky
but we must report back in time.
That night during the break as I went down,
I felt the early chill of winter setting in,
(It was the second week of November.)
behind the thinnest veil of fog,
diffused throughout the capital
and by too much light rendered almost invisible.
I longed to get back to my office room,
air-conditioned, cozy and warm
but the fuming cigarette in my hand
held me back. As I looked at it to estimate
just how many puffs it would take
to burn away the rest of it, my shifting gaze
stumbled upon the sight of a sheepish child.
A boy, hardly beyond seven years of age,
walking in the crowd all alone,
with tear streaks drying on his innocent face.
On first look it seemed he was coming right at me,
naked above his waist and his tender skin
coated with a flimsy layer of dust, glazing
against the blinding city lights.
All around the crowd without even looking twice
moved about, as if there was nothing wrong,
as if the child I saw was a mere ghost,
just a hallucination of my weary mind.
It was all too real, I knew, as the boy
came closer on his tiny steps
lost in the cruel maze of life in his thoughts,
his rights to nourishment and care seemed lost as well.
Then he walked by but not before
I had looked deep into his empty eyes,
where only emptiness and nothing lived
in a void almost infinite.
It was a vacuum left behind
by the shock of a fatal birth,
by the hunger through nights and days,
by the recent loss of his home
and all the cruelties of a drifting life since then.
I had an urge to follow him and see
when, where and how the boy would go to sleep
but right then my intruding mobile phone
began to chime with vibration.
I received it and said, “Hello!”
It was my boss to tell me, I was running late.
When I looked up I could see no trace of the child
lost in the dense forest of indifferent crowds
busy with their own emptiness, like me.