Skip to content

Tag: #acab

Abolish the Delhi Police

-for Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita

Maybe it’s just habit,
but even all these months after
they locked down the city
and took away friends of your friends,
sometimes you still float away 
at that moment when light’s fading 
and the first bats are flying;
and when you wake with a start
it is already dark—
you’re not sure where you are,
but you hear the door bang—
and then you’re relieved 
to find it’s a friend 
who wants to play cards—
or the newspaper man,
bringing the bill—
not someone who’s come
to take you away:

we don’t need police,
they spread only fear.
Comments closed

Stopping by Saidulajab to Consider Horses and Torture

-for Shiv Kumar

Hauling carts and vendors home,
weary horses stop to drink
from a bucket on the road
at the edge of Saidulajab.

They have no time to frisk or roam,
just to quench and shake and blink, 
as they pull their heavy loads
up the road by Saidulajab. 

What happens next, I do not know,
except to say their clop and clink
grows softer, softer, as they go
southward from Saidulajab.
 
There’s news of torture on my phone;
some folks are treated worse, I think,
than the beasts that pull and slow
at the edge of Saidulajab.
Comments closed

Make Us Remember

-Delhi, October 13

Smoke presses down 
    on the 5 pm sky

leaving the sun bloated 
    and glowing,

like a molten bronze medal,
    or a strange neon fruit.

As raptors glide
    in high, hungry circles,

crows keep watch
    from ragged rooflines,

and closer to earth,
     children run laughing

through lanes lined with dust
     and shuttered shops. 
 
This weekend, we’ll read the police 
     have beaten another reporter,

and this reading 
    will make us remember

this is our city,
    we must take it back.
Comments closed
>
Send this to a friend