Against the dying of the light
When empty rhetoric boasts
You have to brace immodesty
And raise a few toasts
To a nobody like yourself, and to the noble souls punished for their quiet honesty.
xxx
i have
cried
ached
sweated
bled
for my country.
everything,
from the calluses on my feet
to the etched sun on my face,
bear witness to it.
and while i realise
that all i did were selfish acts performed for myself
because so many of our interests are tied together,
and while i know,
it is a mere drop
from the ocean
i am capable of giving, hope to give,
I shall not stand at ease and pay attention
As you spout forth on how I should love my country, how I should bay for others’ blood to prove the purity of mine
But remind you that I have held by breath to be able to hear its cries
When you were busy talking down to it.
Crushed
The sun trapezed over my knuckles
When I picked up warm wheat
By fistfuls
Put out to dry by my grandmother
After it was washed and scrubbed.
It would leave in me
Heat, imprint, smell.
Now our packaged flour
Slips right through
The gaps between my fingers.
Those birthed by the earth
Do not hold each other any more.
We maintain sanitized contact
Mediated by steel and plastic.
© Ankita Anand
Deal
“Oranges are expensive all around this year.”
When the fruit seller said this,
I quietly accepted his price.
No, I am not so naive
That I wasn’t infected
By a glimmer of suspicion.
But my apprehension about being duped was negligible
When faced with the fear
Of losing my ability to trust.
© Ankita Anand
Heroes must fall
No room for those who perform
“nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love”
And, at times,
Are human enough to err
We’d rather sculpt heroes,
Carry them high above our heads
So we can pretend we can’t reach them,
Can’t do what they do.
As the burden grows heavier,
And we, as they,
Falter under the weight
We drop them by the wayside as sinners.
© Ankita Anand
Modern day presidential
Hands,
Hands are crucial.
Hurricane hands
Grabbing pussies,
beautiful pieces of ass
Building walls
Tearing through gloves,
insisting on getting themselves dirty
Trashing women cards
Fidgeting around nukes
Ruling the world
Rocking own cradle
© Ankita Anand
Madness Muse Press 