I found this poem resurfacing quite too often to me… which I wrote some two years ago, with irrevocable help from a very (very) old friend of mine, Anurag Atri, who gave the admirable rhetoric “Beginning of the End”.
And today, on his birthday, I thank him yet again…
Here it goes…
Once again the softest gush of dry wind blew,
Along with it, here and there the dead leaves flew
And it made its way rustling through those yellow trees,
Amongst all tyranny, making its detour to the seas.
Invincible it flew days and nights even without wings
Looking for a melody in the song that hatred sings.
With waters of revenge the flames of love were doused,
Hopelessly the doors to heaven were tightly closed.
All that roamed the surface of earth were dirty bloodhounds,
With an attraction to war and deathlike ghastly sounds.
And the devastating dolour they made, they couldn't see.
Since the last thing that ever occurred to them was mercy,
The river that strode freely once now carried crimson blood,
Along with it, all the corpses, filth and impotent mud.
Neither could it see any two lovers sitting on its banks,
Nor any men crossing, singing joyously on wooden planks.
Nothing now is like it used to be, when the sun used to shine,
Over the lands of fiesta, songs, dances and wine.
Love was long lost; friendships and friends did but rarely last
No one seemed to notice, but time was running out fast.
Tricks, treachery, treason and threats were temptatively thrust,
Triumph of truth was torn apart, lost was the trust.
Life was lost to the light from the white angelic dove;
Everything else is all around, but where is the love?
Humans are ditching humans, even faith is being doubted,
Not the god is spared by the deadly masks now surmounted.
The black water is fought for, the cannons yield fires;
Even at the time of dread, man hasn't come off his desires.
It might have been easier to call it just a narrow bend,
But isn't it rightly called the beginning of the end?
Monsters rising from concrete trees have poisoned the air.
With steel the earth is being drilled, but none gives a care.
Iron birds crashed into concrete, innocents killed with ease;
Wars are here for heaven on earth, these bullets will bring peace.
Yet of being innocent these destroyers shamelessly pretend,
With dark masks over them who knows what they intend.
The earth has, for long, paid for her motherly silence,
The broken parts of the puzzle would now make sense.
Now they await her fury, 'cause nature's love too is lost
And her rage surrounds them all like a cold night's frost.
No more absolution would be there from her part,
And now soon enough, a cataclysmic event would start.
Even though they are the owners of all this blame,
They haven't bowed yet, their hearts are still the same.
Still daggers are dug deep into bare chests of men,
Still they wish the other would die off when.
With weapons, the guiltless mankind they'll surely defend.
So isn't it rightly called the beginning of the end?
The terror-stricken eyes of the homeless, orphaned children
Entangled in the eerie eccentricity of all the heartless men.
Tears from the eyes of them, deprived of love and compassion,
And the eyes of battered women, which have lost all passion,
The cry of the oppressed, the agonizing pain in their look:
All glorify the heinous crimes due to which their lives shook.
What a shame: seeing the people fight like born foes,
What a shame: Seeing the billions crying their woes.
Why is there ignorance, poverty, anger, blitz and defeat?
Why can't you be anything other than a hypocrite?
As the clock ticks away, and stars shine brilliantly above,
You'll find that,
Everything else is all around, but where is the love?
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©I.N.C.O.G.N.I.T.O.
