Poetry

Poem: The Dungeon Republic

Beloved belligerence

And this prevailing forlorn

Strident are our streets:

“Anybody? Anyone?”

 

City is grief…

Its viziers have fled.

A few miles away

A burning prayer on her lips:

“Reham!”

 

It’s smouldering summer,

2016.

 

Another bleeding banner,

12 fell to vortex—

Somewhere in a tranquil hamlet

 

Near Dastgeer’s Shrine

A mad mother,

And her wild wails…

 

Years later,

They continue to pen pain

In a sulking state of seethe

 

Poet, stop faking odes!

That sophomore is long gone

—the one who used to inscribe

Those rhymes of

Romance

 

Now, love is ash

And ashen is our life…

 

“Dear pallbearers…

For God’s sake!

Don’t take him,

Too soon, too cold.”

 

They’re born to die—

Too young, too handsome

 

I saw a walking sorrow,

This fall,

Beneath the crimson Chinar—

Perhaps mulling:

Is emancipation that brutal to get?

 

Bud after bud,

Bead after bead…

70 years, perhaps, is some time, no?

 

I heard the father—

“He was God’s gift”—

On way to lower

His apple of eyes

Inside a blooming garden

Of resting dreamers

 

Behave!

 

This is Dungeon republic.

“He’s a threat to peace!”

“He incites violence!”

“He is enemy of the state!”

 

And that orphaned notebook—

Aur kitna Lahoo...”

Click to comment
To Top