Calculated Inaction

Now tell me what you gain

Through your heavenly grace and fiery rain?

Streets lie broken with ruins strewn, and

The children remain unknowing of their pain.

You wiped the decadent from here to

Start afresh and right your wrongs;

Why start with these scarred by the loss

Of those dearly loved and hope for the sun

To cleanse the memories of a bygone day?

Blow thy wind across our cheeks

And show the beauty of a world that

Now must live by rivers and creeks.

The old centres of life and death

Are no more thanks to the play of your hand!

The smirk of your clouds across the sky

Can’t disprove the futility of your work.

You split the earth and swallowed them whole,

You disparaged the air between the factions

And celebrated when many a mushroom sprouted,

Freezing the young through calculated inaction.

We shall judge you too one day –

Not through a fire like yours

And neither duplicate those fathers of ours.

Your fate is to kill your creation again

And again till the end of meaningless time.

⁂

Shut within the Fourth Wall

"Man dies, man kills"

Candles stubbed, cold,

Blood encrusted sheets -

You stick a head out

To breathe in the night,

Sniffle, choke, cringe, dead.

Seek the lights at night,

Mighty sights in dreams,

Soaked in sweat, stay awake;

For flowers are from the past.

White behind eyelids,

Shut within the fourth wall;

Cry, cry, cry out loud:

They hear you as

Long as they're sober.

Faster than dogs,

If only we could have;

But caught, whipped, caged,

Drugged as deadly nightshade,

We are marble, we are red.

Man is both the dead and Death,

Man is both god and child,

Man is, but also not.

Why this world, why?

Colours jar the brain

Through this eternal night

Where we fight for light,

But only to test

Our dimming sight?

⁂

Darkness to Light to Darkness

Swimming abreast the primordial soup

Beneath air glistening with a phantasmal glow,

We came upon no break nor beauty

That called for thought or reflection.

The clouds were jewelled and vast,

And the skies beyond held visions of stellar births,

But what use these sights with none to behold?

Waiting for the prestige, we swam on in the dark.

Where is the will to refuse or rise against

A power, or an empty hand that forces?

Though the flow takes us nether, we shall

After all, remain your helpless children.

There were times when the dream was

Rough at the edges but pleasing to an eye,

But what thirst they quenched, gave no

Gain nor grouse to gamble or grapple with.

A dream is, after all, meant to be forgotten.

We listen to the night's chorus, we grow

Wary when chants call upon 'light' to lead;

We step back into the wispy remnants

Of the past and pray for ignorance to

Redeem us and defile this impossible truth.

*

Third, but not Last

Pray for rain when you could seed the clouds;

Hope for the best when all you wait

Is for your own idle indecision to shatter.

Why ever claim that you are a mere pawn

And insignificant to the extent of vain modesty?

All this when you draw blood at the onset of winter

With no god to goad you and no sun above...

If ever His words were to come true, we’d be slaves,

Carrying out work commanded by our own delirium.

*

What They did to the City of Dreams

Dark shapes moving in the darkest night,

They leave not a shadow, you dismiss their whispers.

You sleep uneasily, unconsciously anticipating doom

To fall upon all: those were the darkest you ever saw.

‘Move from cover to cover, hide in the dark,

Drive the tanker across the city, remember stealth.

Strap the detonator, let it tick, let none awake.

That done, shoot into the night, at every straggler;

Shout the name of god, it’s for him after all.’

Wave after wave of bullets, screams and blood;

The walls were pockmarked with nickel, the glass translucent.

Every surface was a chameleon, confused at crimson –

Those alive aren’t lucky, they live with the dead.

‘Unleash the wrath of our god on those infidels,

Kill those who are bleeding, impregnate the pregnant.

They will look up to you, beg and plead for mercy,

Think not once, shoot them and send them to their Gods.’

The lights were turned on, their faces alight.

We saw them, but they saw us first.

Guns blazing in every room, it was bloodstained luxury.

A city’s landmarks of success were violated, burnt

And reeking of the dead who did no wrong.

‘Give yourself up to god, follow my words,

You lived your five and twenty years

For this night; you’re a martyr.

You’re a son every mother would pray for.

Now come to the tanker before detonation,

Praise him - you have to die to be immortalized.’

They had trained their crosshairs on aliens,

They did exactly what their master(s) ordered.

The dark shapes are darker, their minds blank.

They attain salvation, they see no blood, they see their god.

Our eyes are the ones that are cursed,

Or is it them, the ones being controlled?

We wonder about their intentions,

We fear the route they take to their god.

The Extent to which they go, we sometimes wonder

If the Imperius Curse* exists in reality.

*The Imperius Curse is a fictional element, but it's reality lies in studying those whom we call terrorists. Refer to Imperius Curse on Wikipedia to get a fair idea on what J. K. Rowling meant in her books.

Some People Still can't get It

Whenever the times are bad,
Whenever the world turns its back,
Why do you look to that idea?

Where is that which you can’t see?
Where is it when you are lost?
I can see it in the clouds,
But what is it doing up there?

Times when the spine shivers;
When a dot spreads
The darkness across your eyes,
Where is it that kills the void?

What can it do when the fear
Is from within, deeper than itself.
That every sinew of your heart
Is black, weak, enslaved,
And like Lavinia, ravished.

That the wrong think themselves wronged,
That they try to pray for pardon,
Is the lowest that filth can reach.

Taking up those arms and ideas,
Waging war against those
Whom you never knew,
And will never see in Hell.

See all the harmony around,
Feel the ambience of death.
Lie to me that you can,
And you’ll see that which none
Can see in life and neither in good death.