Poetry

I am not blind, no, I can see yousee you tear apart the scarf from her head,I can see the bangles brokenLaying on the floor.I can see your hand searching her,her ripe bosom;the lust in your eyesis visible to me.I can see the smile on your face,full of disgusting pride you carry. I can see, until I become one of those,those hit with your pellets.Those who can’t see!And I will cease to see further. But I will still be able to hear,her screams,the sound of the bangles falling upon the floor,your laugh and furthermore,the stories of my fellows;seen with their eyes until every lastof them is hit with your pellets. And when nobody is leftto hear or to see,our ghosts will fight, for ourAazadi* *freedom First published in WithKashmir.

Il miglior fabbro Deep purple is not just a colour,but an award, under our clothes,that shines,brightly but painfully,awarded to the woke, for excellencein resistance and dissidence. How do you speak?and why do you want to?only inside the mouth,a tongue is a tongue;no bone, then how?how do you make it standon its feet, and make it march,restlessly and tirelessly. What do you want to muckrake?for expression is lost,upon expressing, it ceases to be,the moment a tide of reckoning hits itwith waves of misinterpretationsand it is pulled into the cesspoolof allegations and arguments, and istrapped forever in the quagmire ofambiguous desolations. May-be you too are haunted,by the ghosts of azaadi,or may-be you are a troubled child,of an unhappy marriage betweenconcealed fascismanddivulged freethinking. First published in The Universe Journal Subsequently in Asian Speaks.

Under the sordid sun we sat,repugnant rays bathed our skins.Black clouds in the distant sky,overlooking a canopy of redwoods;omen of what is to come. ‘Don’t speak, its prohibited,’she muffled in my ears,‘confine your words dear,for, to speak is to boor’.Hold! It may pass as well! The wings of wax had melt,and then Icarus rose no more.And Phaethon fell to earth,burning all it had, but thenit passed, as all things do. For ashes of the martyrsgive birth to martyrs again.And from tyranny arises-tongues and arms and shoulders-which turn the sun immaculate. First published in Asian Speaks.

Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!I cry dissent; they hear hatred.I bleed nauseously and ooze panic,they rub me with pellets and bullets,to close my wound, they welt my skin. Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!I paint dissent; they see hatred.I eat grief and breathe pain,they feed me laws and rules,to fill my stomach, they keep me hungry. Sickles, spades, stones sticks!I write dissent, they read hatred.I hear mumbles and whispers of despair,they sing me fire and pepper gas lullabies,to tune my ear, they pierce my drums. Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!