You are rubbing my head as Kabul falls, and again when your friend’s sister calls; bad news, bad news, it comes in twos, hold on to the ones you love.Comments closed
Poems about the dark times.
In the midst of this summer of fires and floods, UN scientists announce the world will continue to warm for 30 years no matter what we do, and absent immediate, drastic action, this trend will intensify around the time our neighbors’ young children have children of their own. Three days after the report is released (and 19 years and 10 months after the US invades Afghanistan), Kandahar falls, and soon after that, Kabul, and then we all remember: some changes nest for decades before they hatch and fly; like the water deep beneath us— when will our taps run dry?Comments closed
-August 15, 2021 I spent hours last night trying to write a ghazal that included this line: unbroken, Umar Khalid’s still in jail, and also this one: they aim to break your soul and will in jail. ‘School teachers’ and ‘freedom fighters’ figured in it, but I gave up in the end because it really all came down to this: They aim to break your soul and will in jail; unbroken, Umar Khalid’s still in jail.Comments closed
-August 15, 2021 Vaccines, free for all. How many friends died waiting? Thanks, PM Modi. Someone’s in our phones. Do you sense them listening? They can’t hack our dreams. What of our farmers? They’re still here, they never left— I dream Shaheen Bagh.Comments closed
Last night as it rained, I dreamed I was a child; my parents were both sick— I brought them tea and stew. This morning on the road, a man scowled as he weighed a shard of broken glass— he was a mystery. Some things, we must infer; some things, we’ll never know: who is in our phones? How did it come to this?Comments closed