A dictator falls while IDF drones continue to target young children.Closer to home, the cold arrives late,and a young mother I knew ten years ago,dies of TB and caste.
Poems about the dark times.
A dictator falls while IDF drones continue to target young children.Closer to home, the cold arrives late,and a young mother I knew ten years ago,dies of TB and caste.
-Delhi, November 29, 2024UN conventions aim to restrain all genocide–but committees and courts have failed to tame this genocide.Who targets hospitals, children and schools in Palestine?The IDF’s AI is specially trained for genocide. Long-ago kings displayed rebel heads in town…
Yes, some of ourfeelings are ancient:how we yearn for a lover,like we yearn for a breeze when our soggy shirts clingin the damp August heat–but this August, some things feel new:how the king and we knowhis power has waned–his thousand…
Stacked on the back of his cycle,three shiny slabs of iceare melting before my eyes–how many friends will we losebefore rains bring relieffrom this killing heat?Meanwhile children in Rafahare burning in tents and schools–we must uncover our eyes, grieve and…
What will he say to these judgein this land sown with hatred and lies?Kabir will say: Free Umar Khalid!Kabir will say: Open your eyes!
-for Sharjeel Imam and Gulfisha Fatima You tear down a party flag as we cut through the back lane– I warn: CCTV; you scold: Control your worry– How many have they jailed? Let’s pray they are beaten soon! I concede…
I’m schooling myself against hope: This is all too little, too late, but then after this long, lonely day, you text: there’s work to do, come– we have such a very short time, the sun’s left behind a cool breeze,…
Spring has arrived in Delhi as the Supreme Court scolds SBI again and India Today live streams the PM– later, on the edge of the city police tend gardens of cement and spikes, and the rich gaze out their windows…
Two nights ago, you shook your head at the saffron flags that line the narrow lane behind our flat like wilted marigolds– They are a kind of anger, a kind of challenge, you said. Last night, we watched news of…
-Recalling Umar Khalid’s latest bail plea while reading Langston Hughes on Republic Day It might shrivel– or fester and run, stink, explode or crust over– but the taste of the air today tells me, for now, it’s likely to smoulder.
The ‘not-a-morning-person’ in his recent insta poem looks a whole lot like the man right next to me– and yes, I too am sleepy as I swipe to the next story: Israeli-US bombs, the bunker busting ones. Could those bombs…
-Kotla Mubarakpur, November, 2023 I won’t comment on the moon, or the way the chemist shops were bathed in neon light– forget the smoke and dust, forget the swerving bikes– you took my hand that night. Today I woke at…
The Delhi air turned cool, so we set out into the night; we argued about the future– you said, I was too optimistic. The G20-potted-plants were wilting or already dead; we cursed our leaders and wondered if curses were now…
Whether he’s a terrorist or a family man– and whether he’s in Canada, UP or Pakistan– when a state kills without a trial, don’t name it encounter– name it, call it, what it is: either war or murder.
-August 15, 2023 a woman squats as she sifts through a pile of bricks– yesterday, this was her home.
-reading Sakshi Malik’s response to the FIR My grandfather was a wrestler– he said wrestlers understand power. Home ministers understand power, as does Brij Bhushan Singh. The police understands power, Sakshi Malik understands power– she says she has ‘hard calls’…
Every morning last week, two butterflies appeared near the bush by our back window– they flickered there, like static from your mother’s old radio, or faraway lightning– or j0y. This week, they’re suddenly gone– like the tailorbirds’ storm-broken nest, or…
A ten-rupee tarnished sun rains heat on Hauz Rani: the Afghan baker sweats over his hot stove; so far from home, this man– I think of Umar Khalid. Your shirt is robin blue– we buy a piece of bread.
You say that if an AI ever copied me, there’d be a smoky sun, or a lonely, moonlit dog– or a lizard or a snake, or even Amit Shah; it’d close with Umar Khalid or Sharjeel Imam. Yes, I should…
Sometimes in the epics, demons fall on heroes as they pass through forests– like the thugs who grabbed you, late night, from a bus stop– they took you to the station, gave you to the police, who tried to extract…