Strange Land

This is a strange land. The skies heavy with
Cloud bleeding the sunset in drops of red -
The skies light with the stars. But the stars are new.

This is a strange land. Your feet tread the familiar paths,but the twists and turns are new,
The charred sands are strange. You can't see where the night goes.

This is a strange land. The moon through the window is a face,a face looking down on you. Expressionless. Not happy not sad not anything. And when you touch

Yourself,all you feel is a skull. Here you have no right to a face.

On the table before you, a mask,happy smile sad smile,with a dash of tears. You pick it up and you put it on.

The stars wheel by,the night slopes by, you sit at the window. You watch the night, you drink the dark, 

You wait for the hint of dawn.


Copyright B Purkayastha 2011

One Day

One day

Everyone is going to look at everyone else,

and hold out their hands.

"It's time we stopped

hating

hurting

being afraid.

"I'm like you

bone wrapped in muscle, fat wrapped in skin, sweat and dirt and grime,

and, like you, I too

will die.

"The time we have is too short to waste 

on hate and rancour, too precious to leave till tomorrow

what we should do today.

"Your gods and mine, if there be any, do not thrive on hate and blood and pain and war. And if we

are indeed here for a purpose, it's to know about the universe

and not to hate it

"For hate insults your gods and mine."

One day

The poison of factories

will stop painting the air, the blood of whales will stop

polluting the sea, the land will no longer tremble to the crash of falling forests.

One day

The sun will take back what it had, and the earth

men, women, dinosaur bones, works of art, and SUVs

will be vapourised alike,

impartially.

One day

The hate will end

Either way.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2011

Inter Services Intelligence

Oh citizens of India brave, hearken unto me

Vast is the danger that wants us not-free.

It is called, cross my heart hope to die

That nefarious, scheming, Pakistani ISI.

You’ve heard about it all your lives, I know

And the horrors daily more terrible grow    

Bomb blasts are passé, terrorists all trite

The ISI has other ways to carry on the fight.

Remember that traffic jam that made you lose your flight?

It was because the ISI sabotaged the traffic light

And the plane that got an engine snag, didn’t fly?

Some wires were cut, courtesy ISI.

When drought strikes because there’s no rain

It’s the ISI at its work again.

And when debts mount so farmers poison drink

It’s the ISI that’s raising a stink.

Factories proud symbols of Indian economic might?

You can bet the ISI hates the sight

So they sneak in child workers, isn’t it a shame

What foul play characterises the ISI’s game.

Turn on the TV, there’s nothing really on

Except soap operas that never seem gone

Brain dead characters play endless roles

Better believe it, they’re all ISI moles.

Rising prices, no money in the banks?

‘Tis the ISI that should get your thanks

Economy tanking, no take home pay?

The ISI’s happy at ruining your day.

Riot and burning, mayhem in the street

Civil society in rout and retreat

Stress and tension make your head spin?

The ISI celebrates somewhere with a grin.

Rats in Mizoram state ate all the rice?

The ISI’s been meddling with the birthrates of mice.

Wells been shrinking and lakes all ran dry?

Who d’you think did it all? Why, ISI.

Servant in Delhi killed old man and wife?

It’s the ISI promoting civil strife.

Corrupt cops refuse the poor all aid

It’s another gamble the ISI made.

Floods in Mumbai, fascists on the march?

It all happens on the ISI’s watch.

Crime in Calcutta, crooks in Chennai?

Due to your friendly neighbourhood ISI.

Yes the politicians steal, but do you know why?

It’s because they were paid by the ISI.

Stock market crashes courtesy ISI

And it makes all the journalists lie.

Maoist rebels and weightlifters on dope

Poacher film actors, other things we can’t cope

Trains run late, while forests disappear?

It’s all ‘cause the ISI’s been here.

Beware brothers, check on your child

The ISI’s planned to drive him all wild

They’ll hook him on music and turn him on fun

Before you know it the harm’s all been done.

Laugh not brothers, I warn you so true

The ISI is out to get all of you.

Look under your bed, look up at the sky

Everywhere, everywhen, lurks the damned ISI.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2008

Rachel Corrie

She stood in the way of the machine of hate

Her frailty her only protection

Naked in her clothes, her skin, her bones

In her protectiveness.

If it were Hollywood she might have won.

The machine of hate

Cut her down with its blade

Swept her under its tracks

Showing all its power of life and death

In its destruction of her flesh.

Her sacrifice did not even save

Those she sought to protect.

Not Hollywood, no.

But for truth and justice

A sacrifice still.

Which is to say, perhaps –

Some liberal terrorist-lovin’ traitor bitch

Got in the way of freedom and democracy

And got what she deserved.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2006

I am a God

I am a god

I tower over these

Insignificant scuttling specks wriggling in the slime.

I am a god

I can crush them to nothing

Under My boots, should I choose to –

Them and their infinitesimal

Little lives, that fail to know Me,

To acknowledge My genius, My greatness

That have no right to existence

But by My will.

I see them, crawling –

Jews, Russkies, Chinks, Injuns, gooks, spics, ragheads, niggers

Bhindis, wogs, commies, scum of all description

People without existence, caricatures of men,

Deserving nothing, forming only –

A smudge on the blank purity of My universe.

I am a God

And they shall know it

They shall be made to know Me, and then

They shall feel

My wrath.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2006

Dream Come True

You and I dreamed of what this would be like

Walking hand in hand in the moonlight

Fingers intertwined

Our skin feeling each other, our bare feet feeling the grass

We dreamt

Of slipping each the other’s clothes off in the moonlight

Exploring

Hand to breasts, hand to body

Breathing the scent of each other

Our sweat slicked skin on each other’s

And consummation, one inside the other

In the soft moonlight

Orgasm that made no difference

Of identities, and neither would know

Who was who

And we would make love for ever.

You and I made this dream come true

We walked barefoot on the grass

And the thorns pricked our feet

We slipped our clothes off

And mosquitoes flocked to the treat.

The only thing left

Is for you to tell me

That you are pregnant

Or you have HIV.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2006

Ravana

You humiliated and mutilated my sister

For the crime of falling in love.

I took your wife hostage

In retaliation, and did not touch her

Though I fell in love with her.

You burned down my city

For no fault of its people.

You called us demons

Because we were not "Aryans" like you.

When we beat you in fair combat

You went to sorcerers

To secure victory.

You are the one

Who made his wife enter fire

To prove her chastity.

And you call your victory over me

That of good over evil!

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

Ballad Of The Concentration Camp

Walls grey walls bricks wire and glitter of metal weapon-bright in the sunshine but no litter
This is no place for litter. Here Arbeit Macht Frei. Here we're in Paradise
If only we knew it. And only the traitor feels his hunger, only the treasonable
Moans his pain. Here the birds fly over the wall, and the towers with their machine guns. This is no prison for birds,
More's the pity. Because -
I'd like to fly over the walls with those birds, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer. I know this is 
Ungrateful, after all you have done. After your tender beatings
To teach me to keep my eyes down
And my mouth shut, except to answer roll call. I'm grateful for those lessons, surely I am. Maybe even some day I would figure out what I'm doing here. I only know it's for my good,
Because the Fuehrer said so. Was I am I an enemy of the people? I, Jew, Social Democrat, Gypsy, Communist, am I the enemy? Is it true?
I'm desolate at my own incompetence at comprehending the simplest thing, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer. You could have sent me to the chambers, after all, but you didn't. 
Then
I might have flown like the birds, over the wall
In smudges of crematorium smoke.
Maybe you might have done me a favour at that, HerrHauptsturmfuehrer. 
I think I hate you.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

I, too, Anger

It may just be

I have to tell the world I am a man.

That I have blood in my veins

And bones, muscle and sinew.

I breathe, I exist, and when I see injustice

I, too, anger.

When I see my mother my son

Held at gunpoint, my sister raped,

My pregnant wife shot

I, too, anger.

When I see the occupier’s boots crush down on my land

When I see my brother’s blood mix in the sand

I, too, anger.

But when I take up the gun

When I put the enemy on the run

I’m an enemy of the people

And I have no right to anger.

When I fight the men who bomb my town

Who turn our lives upside down

Divide brother against brother

It’s news no longer.

I’m a dead ender, I’m a beast

A child-killing raghead terrorist

And those who would rule over us

Have a right to anger.

It’s time I said I am a man

It’s time I said I will and can

It’s time I said I will shed my blood

But I will prove to the world

That I, too, anger.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

Almost Funny

Lying in bed in the 

Liquid silence - shrouded 

Darkness before dawn-come-light

There are stars (a little blurred

Without my contact lenses) I watch

Floating in the sky.

Wish we could go visit them

In our lifetimes, wish we would live long enough.

Maybe on alien worlds

In the light of alien suns

We could be what, here, we could never be.

Pity

That we’re going to die out

Long before infinity.

And it would be almost funny -

Death by aerosol can

Death by SUV.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

That's Why They Go To War

                                               

The bombers are flying high tonight, mother

Like silver birds they fly so high

I wish I could be in the bombers mother

Spinning white trails through the sky.

From the bombers you see, mother

The land is a picture, flat, brown and green

And the blood and the tears, mother

Remain ever unthought and unseen.

From the bombers, you see, mother

The target, whatever it’s been

School, house, or trench full of soldiers, mother

Is just a grey picture on a little screen.

The picture blows apart most satisfactorily, mother

When from heaven the bombs of freedom fall  

And TV news can show the world, mother

Green glow images of a demolished wall.

Not for bomber crew the images, mother

Of children who went to sleep

Thinking they were safe in the arms, mother

Of parents who can now just weep -

Looking at the bloody stumps, mother

Of some future footballer’s legs now gone

But things like that must, you know, mother

Be ignored if wars are to be won.

And iron wheels go roaring by, mother

As tanks crush beneath their tread

The fields from which men and women, mother

Spent sweat to win their daily bread.

You see the tanks passing, mother

In uniform the soldiers look so fine

Their eyes are fixed on the horizon, mother

Not here and now like yours and mine.

The soldiers look to the future, mother

To the horizon wreathed in flames

They fight for the nation, mother

They aren’t here to play silly games.

Emotion is not a winner, mother

In a world where might is right

And the soldiers know the truth, mother

That is why they go to fight.

You look into their eyes, mother

Why do you wonder that they cannot see

What to you is one thing, mother

Is quite another to them and me.

No wonder, then, believe me, mother

That they crush beneath their tracks

The little children the bombers killed

Lying in the open on their backs.

Life is just a stray incident, mother

Death comes as the end.

And what is the here and now, mother

Slides forever round the road’s sweeping bend.

The soldiers and the bombers know the truth, mother

That it’s better each time and by far

To do than to be done unto, mother

And that is why they go to war.  

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

The Suicide Bomber

Little boy standing at the corner

No one to give him food

No one to teach him to read and write

His only knowledge is manual work

To earn himself a bite to eat

And maybe shoes to put his feet

If someday he gets really lucky.  

You take this boy and give him food

Give him clothes and give him words

Teach him to read and write

Tell him what’s wrong and what’s right

Make him love you like a son

And when you ask him, in return

He’ll become a suicide bomber. 

Daddy’s boy watching his father work

Day and night and robbed of his reward

Watching the rich get richer on his father’s sweat

Watching his mother starve herself and fret

That her children still don’t get enough to eat

That they will never find any kind of job

Wonders what’s wrong with his world.

You take Daddy’s boy to the mosque

Tell him the mosque has the answers

Tell him if he wants he can taste paradise

All this world is sin and vice

All he needs to do is take up the gun

To fight back against evil and injustice

He’ll become a suicide bomber.

Mullah talking to man and wife

Explains their son hasn’t died

Just been translated to another plane

Honours of a martyr to his name

And he will reserve a place in paradise

When their time comes round at last

So they shouldn’t mourn, but rejoice.

Mom and dad sit side by side

Mullah man gone back to the mosque

Wonder where the music’s all gone

Wonder why all this is so wrong

And despite it all they weep

Till they cry themselves to sleep

For their son, the suicide bomber.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007

In The Boardroom

"We must make a profit,” said the CEO

“That’s what we’re here to do.

We mustn’t fail in that,” and he frowned

“I must make this clear to you.

“We have a right,” said the CEO

“To riches beyond avarice’s dreams

And to achieve those riches,” quoth he

“Blood and tears may flow in streams.

“If the law it is that gets in our way

The law can always be changed

We must overcome the forces

That against us are ranged.

“If they should say we rape the world

Don’t hesitate a moment to say

The world belongs to us to do with

What we want to do today.

“It pains me, sure, when I hear

That children starve in shanty slums,

Or that polluted streams provide

Drinking water in leaking drums.

“But that’s not a problem,” the CEO said

“That slum around the city.

They can’t buy what we make

So waste not on them pity.

“They’re useless as consumers,” he said again

“What we provide they can’t buy.

And it would be foolish indeed

To look at their lives and cry.

“It’s the survival of the fittest,” he explained

“And the fittest they are not

If they were fit to survive,” he smiled

“They’d have the money we’ve got.

“In order to thrive,” the CEO said

“What you, in fact, really need

More than ability, more than smarts

Is lots and lots of greed.

“They just aren’t greedy enough,” said the CEO

“Greed makes the world go round.

This truth the world has known,” said he

“Since the first man tilled the ground.

“We own the world,” said the CEO

“We do what we want to do.

Truth of all times in these words

That I lay before you.

“We own the world, we own it all

Every little thing under the sun

And if we should wreck this earth,” said he

“We can always buy another one.”

                                             

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007