Category: Poems

They’ll find us here.
No, not tonight.
You sure? They might.
No, not tonight.
Because we’re hid?
Because we’re hid.
And no one knows?
No, no one knows.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

—

Are you asleep?
I’m here. I’m here.
They haven’t come.
They won’t tonight.
I had a dream.
It’s just a dream.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

—

We have to go?
We have to, yes.
It’s safe in here.
Our life is there.
We slept in here.
We needed rest.
To fight again?
To fight again.
I’m scared out there.
You’re scared here too.
But here is safe.
Yes, here is safe.
So why? Why go?
To make there safe.
Coz life is there?
Coz life is there.
Okay.
Okay.
You sure?
I’m sure.

When baited, pause, recall you hold
The right of no opinion.

When taunting, pause, recall you hold
The right to no opinion.

Oppressed, recall you can’t restore
The right with no opinion.

In charge, recall you can ignore
The right in no opinion.

At first, you want to see my face –
The real face beneath the masks,
Beyond the dimpled glow I show.
But when I take them off, you know
The warts, the wrinkles, acne loud,
And give me skincare tips you use.
And then you give me makeup tips.
And when it fails to add on me
The magic touch it adds for you,
You ask me slowly, one by one,
To wear some masks to spare the hurt
My ugliness inflicts on you.
And now that I refuse to wear,
You say I don’t consider you?

Today, forget the decades lost
Somnambulating through this life.
For every year of being awake,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Today, forget the ones who harm,
And ones who’re only standing by.
For every year of friendships baked,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Today, forget the learnings lost
By turtling in and playing safe.
For every year of proud mistakes,
Let’s add a candle to this cake.

Won’t murder grant him martyrdom?
As Thomas More, he’ll be so more
In death than ever living did.
Except, he’ll mind the company.
Except, he tilts the other way.
No, not the way that Tyndale did –
Another more in death than life
For words he wrote despite Sir More.
If More and Tyndale see-saw played,
He sees no see-saw’s what he said.
He sees no seers of divine.
He sees their Words as just some words:
Bewildering, though well-refined
Through centuries of what-they-mean –
These changing immutable signs.

At crossroads of your Present-life,
They peddle God in paper cones
Of peanut pods of Afterlife.

There’s nothing wrong in once or twice
Partaking of those steaming nuts.
There’s nothing more composing, right?

But when you eat at every fork,
Not only have you wasted time,
You’re left with only empty shells.

Oh! Also sound and gassy fury.

To men who came to rock our gates,
Demanding where’s our National Flag,
Why not it stands on Freedom Day,
I asked the meaning of the Flag –
The Saffron, White, and Green, and Wheel –
They simply said it is our Flag
And matters not what else it means,
Except it is the National Flag,
And being so must be stood today
As high as any nation’s Flag,
And those who don’t, do not deserve
Protection of the National Flag.
And what becomes, I asked of them,
Tomorrow of this National Flag?
When lying on the streets and roads
We trample on our National Flag?
When choking up the gutters, drains,
We shovel off our National Flag?
When from the jaws of cows and dogs
We mangle out our National Flag?
They spit their betel on our gate,
And tied to it the National Flag.

It’s said you do a namaste
To show you hold no blades, no spikes;
With palm to palm, exposed forearms,
Forfeit the chance of blocking strikes;

By bowing, you present yourself
For anyone to smash your head,
Or fell the ready nape of neck,
Or cut your hair to shame instead.

It’s said you do a namaste
To show you trust them with your life.
But who’re we kidding with this tale?
Of course, it means you want a bribe.

It means you will not do what’s asked.
It means you want them gone away.
It means your job requires you to.
It means your parents made you say.

It means you wouldn’t touch their hand.
It means you’re good, not needed, thanks.

Again, she asks me whats-the-point,
The question that for half our time
She’s asked without being satisfied.

Again, I ask her whats-the-point.
I’ll tell and you will throw your arms
Incensed, “I just don’t understand!”

You’re tall, you’re fast, you’re quick to learn.
You’re everything your Grandpa wished.
He charged me with his library
To hold it for you, Little Miss.

He told me when to give you what:
The comic books of Indian Myth,
The pop-up Russian fairy tales,
The illustrated Chinese skits,

That German children’s geometry,
That Japanese abacus text,
And on and on for twenty years,
For every birthday and the next.

And for today, your very first,
He wished for you his warmest hug,
The one he only gave to me,
While others only got his shrug.

But as I can’t be with you now,
And mourning rules forbid all gifts,
I write a poem for your ears
And amber Grandpa’s love in this.