poetry

Cherry blossoms died along the Tidal Basin
of a blighting mid-March freeze that hit DC
roaring from Pennsylvania Avenue southward
gathering energy straight through the Ellipse
there knifed in twain by Washington’s pointed marker.
Delicacy fares poorly in the clutch of such an evil storm
when once so gripped there’s little to be done
in the face of blind and fearsome terror
unleashed by forces unimagined prior to or since
where stupid fury’s mindless greed
blasts any blooming gracefulness away.

The RSS affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas headed by Dina NathBatra has sent a list of recommendations for the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) which had recently solicited public response for its review of school textbooks. The list includes removal of Paash’s poem, “The Most Dangerous”.

There is no wheeling bat-flight
to eye-follow
around the bruised-purple hues
and dim burgundy light.
There’s a rejected pulse/heartbeat
drumming somewhere in the vague… distance
to accompany the mournful cello strings
))))shuddering((((
deep inside my cliff-leaping nerves.
A spider on hunger strike…
shadow-waiting something out of reach…
as the dull, throbbing Echo
sings mournful lullabies to itself…
and I dubiously half-wish
upon falling stars…
instantly kamikaze by my intrusive insistence.

The end came sudden and without remorse,
panic soaked the hand that held the gun near,
seven times gunshots rang with deadly force.
A child in back seat meant nothing of course,
A mother’s scream for help no one can hear,
the end came sudden and without remorse.
Fear is language spoken without discourse,
the grip of the grave that sprays through the air,
seven times gunshots rang with deadly force.
Philando laid powerless like a corpse,
each breath a gasp for life as death loomed near,

A ring
Hanging
Lightly
Grasped
A smile
Holding
Night’s bright
But distant blossoms
Waiting
For morning to bloom
When the smiling sky
Waking
Enters your room
Past the fluttering
Curtains of sleep
With winds of worry
Long subdued
Now just
Sweet breezes
Dare to sing.

Over 200 years,
And the bombs
Have never stopped
Bursting in air.
And my
Daughter asked
Last Tuesday:
“What does ‘jingoism’
mean?”
I opened the
window
On the fireworks,
The flagsucking,
Blood-soaked
Celebrants,
The burning flesh
On the grills,
Making a pleasing
Odor in the
Nostrils
Of The Lord
Of war,
The Lord of
Corpses and killers,
Of brain eaten
Zombies.
“This,” I said.
“Sweetheart, it
Means all of
This.”

We are outliving our eyes
We no longer can cry
In a wicked world politically
uncaring to weep is to act
in some small but at least human
way out or through hopelessness.
Today we watched a dead child
on a foreign beach far from his home
another on a Hungarian railroad track
his father pulling mother and child there
rather than return them to the untenable
and we discovering ourselves to be helpless
are but for this verse individually useless.

Well, George,
it looks
like you were right.
For what seems like forever,
boots have been stamping
on human faces.
This is a time
of universal deceit
where the deceived
help keep lies alive
because truth
is a foreign language
to their split tongue.
Cops are pulling
no warning triggers
with no repercussion,
except paid vacation.
Savage idiots,
happy
to be holed up
with their ignorance
in backwoods,
glass houses
support unchecked

Calm … quiet … serene
is the scene
Lush … green … gentle
in the woods
One brown leaf
finally falls
under the swelter of summer
after having held on
a bit too long
through autumn and winter
Sometimes it’s best
in life
to relinquish your grip
when the pressure
of the past
becomes overwhelming
Sometimes the rope
slices hands
if you don’t let go
when the ghost
on the other side
has already vanished
Soft … silent … resting
is the heart

The roads are black
Pilgrims die like cattle
Paying homage in blistering
Terrain is not enough
Even if the gods do not bless
Terrorists do
In the name of a country
We cannot travel
Kashmir’s gates are too near
Death or the valley of guns
If it is not our soldiers
It is theirs
We are mangled
Them and us
Our bodies are them and us
Our corpses too
Why even our gods are
Them and us.
Why cannot we be them
And them us?
Because the blood is not
Them and us!