The Cursed Land
written by: Satabdi Saha
Stones with heated hearts
Fiercely reddened by blasting sun
Steeled network of iron minds
Where stones abound; smash
Softer zones, while vengeance burns.
No greens, but smoking, jostling cars,
Honking sweat-streets, sticking raw,
Burnt tar with shoes, lost in the run.
The ground stammers obscene rumbles
Ripping and unzipping fears; skyscrapers
Trembling in the mighty swell of tears,
Crashes heard bridges collapse
Wounds hurt and death-smells untraced
The cacophony of unreachable ends,
It’s impotence, sketches bloody; hairline
Distances — victims and predators.
Leafy boughs felled, resisting
In the vortex, life’s tortuous sojourn
That defines hatred in politics of power.
None thinks of greed’s backlash
No light- tailed tadpoles or fish in ponds
Gone, cackling geese, looking around
For a hole, lonely swings swinging in hope
But lies roam freely, in abandoned parks
Of reminiscences, lost in time.
But, ‘drums of destiny’ will start a different
Beat, in this comatose land.
- Refusal - March 4, 2023
- Kinship - August 18, 2022
- Colours of Life - April 13, 2022
