Four Poems

 /I read these at The Quarantine Train, an online poetry forum for learning and community building/

Title: Podium

 

We are defined by our headgear now 

 

He, a friend, visited home 

over the years

Eating milk sweets and 

Applying vermillion on his forehead 

 

Over the past few years 

The shape of his head was 

Covered with a dogma,

I cannot refute 

 

I don’t see my friend, anymore 

I see a thought, I cannot digest 

I see a faith, I cannot worship 

 

Now, we are two ideologies 

 

Arguing on a podium 

That doesn’t belong to us

 

Title: You stink

 

You stink 

Because you inherit 

Pride, misanthropy, unrecyclable discord and an

Orgasm for power

 

You stink 

With the blood of an infant, 

Murdered for a surname, 

Whose innocent letter

Wonder of its purpose 

 

You stink 

Of the rusty sensory organs 

That have given into a commercial of belief 

And they are engaged to it

 

And you stink 

Because your feet are fixed on an island 

So primitive that they cannibalise emotions 

And worship deities of fear 

 

But I urge you to cleanse yourself 

See hear think what you are born for 

Leave the island 

Live everyday till the stench leaves you 

Or you leave the stench 

 

Title: What allures my senses?

 

Is it the strength of her voice or the depth of her baritone

Baked in humility. When she looks, her eyes reflect 

A question, she cannot ask. 

She speaks not from the tip of her tongue but from the 

Bottom of her gut

It is laced with a nobleness, 

as soft as the handwoven clothes she drapes 

But none see it for their senses are veiled 

With the loudspeaker of a blaring noise

That only deafens their conscience and 

Mimics nincompoops 

 

 

Title: Priest of my conscience

/After Nandita Das’s Manto/

 

You are not the priest of my conscience

You are a friend. You are a confidant. 

Your rights include being a co-conspirator, 

being a witness to my misdeeds. 

Let me fall. Let me tumble. 

Don't pick me. Don't stop my ramble. 

 

You are not a priest of my conscience. 

You are the badge to the dishonor I drape. 

You are the safety pin to my loosely-stitched cape.  

You ought to be my diabolical twin. 

Stay. Don't move. Be my sin.