Turn the sun-dials anti-clockwise
as the meteors fall from the skies
young men
killed in the middle of the night
as their fathers look on
scholars jailed
as politicians write on the merits of religion
as women see their hijabs get torn to shreds
courts remain silent
and journalists nap
on the corpses of a democracy.
We live in a strange world
where punished are those
who speak
tormented are those
who seek well for the nation
and imprisoned are those
who carry a different faith in their hearts and surnames.
There is no religion to speak of
no faith that protects
only ones that kill
believing in mass congregations
paying an ode to genocide
there is no land
no motherland
only the carcass
of a dead country
waiting
to be plunged
into the dearth
of hatred, violence and meaningless sacrifice.
Debottam Saha is a poet and aspiring novelist. His first volume of poems is called ‘Footprints of Chaos’. You can find him on Twitter @de_bottam.