Arafat back

Seen off with nostalgic tears,
In a heroic military parade,
 And now back, Arafat is,
After eight years silent as dead;
This time not as the iconic figure,
In the long struggle for freedom,
But in dismembered pieces,
From the digouts of a concrete tomb.
Why, you might ask, as anyone would,
And they tell you, he's back,
"In defence of the ultimate good";
So truth be known and justice observed,
They say, as if for what he did when 'live,
A "rest in peace" when dead is not deserved.
But truth and freedom for whom,
What vengeful justice of a kind,
Do they want him to fight ,
Back in a world he left behind?

Me again?

Like a new chap in the making,
I wake up every morn,
With a zillion cells of mine dead,
And a zillion new ones reborn;
So am I essentially the same me,
That hours ago went to bed,
Or merely a new flesh,
Of a yesterperson half alive half dead?
With memories of a me in relay,
In seemingly long iterations,
Perpetuating another day,
Through survival tools and actions.

Gazrael

Fire after fire, drone after drone,

For the other blood and bone.

Day in day out, year after year,

Desperations and lives in fear.

Defiance to co-existence,

Arrogance and greed galore;

Narrow-minded nationalisms,

Losses and  destructions what for?

Space and resources suffice,

For both the innocent and the villain;

Why all the politickings and wars,

In return for little gain?

Why all the terror and vandalism,

Why all the human suffering and pain?

To the scientist a thousand years hence

I will be long gone by now,
You may not even know my name;
But I was standing once in this field,
Playing the same kind of game;
A game we called science,
In the bygone days and my generation;
It kinda involved thinking
And elements of experimentation.
It was a set of nature's rules,
With a curious human endeavour;
Based on minimal guesses,
More other rules to discover.
So tell me, do you play the same kind of game still,
Whatever name it goes by?
Do you use paper and pen to set the rules,
And telescopes to scan the sky?
Do you live in a universe
With so many unknowns that hang?
About the nature of its contents,
And the logic of its start in a big bang?
Do you also have players who,
For yet unwritten rules can ask?
And more other players still,
To whom all invisble stuff is dark?
Do some of you players tread it safe,
With a supernatural assumption?
Leaving the stellar role to gods,
At the center of all creation?

Meta-ethical

This other day I went out in shorts,
To a bar of my own choosing;
But I was turned away on sight,
For my "unprotocolic" piece of clothing;)
True story, a good story of virtue and vice:
I was less of a human in their "righteous" eyes.
I know not what you make of these,
Blurred social factual distorsions,
But I call them misjudgements-
Of metaethical proportions.
Judging the book by its cover,
As they say, to what literary gains?
But isn't it the easiest thing to do
For simple, stupid, shallow brains?

Waiting [II]

By the hospital where I wait,
By useless formalities to abide,
I am a patient- but not sick-
Waiting for the the time to slide...
So patiently for now,  but getting sicker of it,
That by the time I leave,
I will be a patient in transit.
By the bus station I wait,
And at the police I waste my time;
Until they lay it bare,
If I ever committed a crime.
I go to the fast food, to eat my food fast,
Hungry like a lion, but hang on,
No clue how long the wait will last!
The authorities want to know who I am,
As a socially constructed fellow,
And I wait for days and weeks,
To know if I am a human being by law;
They prove I am human-or so I think-
But they deny I here belong...
Crazy, selfish times
This world is so gravely wrong!
I go to the embassy asking for approval of passage,
They turn me in and out, for days and weeks around,
And they tell me I am an expired human,
Barking on the wrong ground.
So goes on the list of my helpless little living,
Half expired on waiting, the other half running.

The fine line

How many of you think you have,
All the things you are happy or sad about,
Because you deserve it more than others do
Without any shred of doubt?!
There is no logic and purpose,
That this world of ours goes by;
By accident we exist,
And by accident we thrive or die.
You must be thinking by now,
That my mind is dead or ill;
Please give it a thought or two,
And you will understand what I feel.
If you do what you think is right,
And something goes wrong, to your blame,
Do not take it personal,
That is simply the rule of the game.
There is only a fine line,
Between your deeds and chances;
But that said, it's unexcused,
To idly succumb to circumstances.

I quit!

The end of an era has come,
I am backing out of the deal;
'Cause I can no longer stand,
Your ruthless license to kill.
I might have told you before,
A thousand times the least;
But you would not heed, you are
A blood-thirsty, heartless beast!
The covenant is broken:
This time is no empty vow,
Quit me, see me no more,
I quit you here and now.
I have a life to live;
Have your time to burn,
Enjoy your licensed murder,
On million others in turn.

To the poet a thousand years thence

I who am alive a thousand years,

After messages you passed along,

Confirm hereby I have gotten,

Your beautiful archaic song.

The seas and skies are still rough,

But much easier than thence through to ride;

Communication is in seconds,

Between worlds you knew were once far and wide.

On a much grander scale the prayers,

And ideas of evil and good prevail;

But for simply labeling them foolish,

One can foolishly be sent to jail.

There are more statutes today,

And more consummate palaces that outshine;

But less of  love and music felt to the bone,

Without the heavy load of our wine.

Oh friend unseen, dead, but known,

Teacher of our sweet English tongue;

I read out your words at night, alone:

I am a poet, I am young.

I saw a portrait of your face,

A statute the test of space and  time that stood;

Your greetings I have received,

And I think your message I have understood.

[This is a reply to James Elroy Flecker's POEM ]

The Exam

They want to know how much I know,
They want to see how much I don't,
Oh foolish children of men;
They sat me down on a chair,
And gave me a piece of paper and pen;
They ordered I write all I know of this,
They asked me this and that to show;
Oh, scholarly children, how little details they see,
How little of knowing they know!