Great gales of corrosive vengeance
Buffet city and town, street
And public square, dressed and amplified
By the canny technologies and the wicked
Wealth that drives them.
Creatures crawl from under gutter stones
And tiled obscenities to yell a field
Day of sub-terranean stings, leaving
Breathless those that yet walk upright
On honest legs. Caring thoughts, wherever
Expressed suffer depletion from hedged
Cautions,
An occasional Lear rages upon
A distant heath, hurling ineffectual
Curses at the elements, bemoaning why
A Cordelia should have no breath at all.
And many a Macduff look askance
At the heavens who do not take
The part of murdered innocence.
A Hamlet here and there puts it all
Down to Providence, even as they wish
To have their cause recorded for
Some emancipated posterity.
Among the gales, there is no breeze
That may betoken a resurrection.
Not a streak of blue decorates the skies.
Everywhere, claims of ancient wisdoms
Are laced liberally with arbitrary shovels
Of blood, as men and women are marked
For reckoning with color combinations.
Masses of the powerless flock to hear
Some Antony or another, hoping that
The buttons they press will yield
The results they desire. Long lines
Of the wretched keep their faith, even
As the programmed jinns laugh
Cruelly at their tryst with democracy.
Many turn to the gods for reparation,
Not knowing that gods these days
Dress their favors to a corporate fashion.
India that is Bharat faces yet again
A samudra manthan, but what throat
May this once collar the venom?
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