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“Einstein’s eyes
were filled with tears
when he heard about Hiroshima.
Mr. Tamihi
Had no eyes left
To show his grief”
Expectations are killing
The heart that hopes high
Lends ears to hearsay
And years pass by.
Drum’s dreams beat
With passion, duty walks upright
Doing the deeds that fight,
Though unheeded by the traffic police
Like stray cattle are left
To wander in the streets and to sit
On the pavements in **Varanasi
To chew the cud of abandon
And disappear
To the wonder of the one
In the crowd, craving for order,
In the avenues of the accomplished times,
“Won the race of discovery”
To boast of the achievement
Of the race:
Humanity’s love for inhumanity!
If you love to die in the halls of
Seclusion, come with me.
If you are dying to accomplish
The unfinished work, come with me.
Come with me, if you want your pulse
To beat through its veins, come with me
To jostle with the contemporary crowd
Come with me, if you wish to sleep
The dreams of innocence on the high sea.
Wake up and come with me,
Jog beside me on the road to anonymity,
That leads to the river of retreat,
Where you can dive deep into the bliss
Of duty, your duty towards your own
Countrymen and as the civilians of the world,
Come out of your shells, cubicles of self,
Come out into the open
To see the sun, and the moon and the sky.
.
Come out to see the world of missiles
And bring your children too,
To see the beauty of the mines,
To smell the drowsy fragrance of the powder:
Their purpose has been noble
And practical and striking.
So let your children enjoy
The background music. It is enthralling,
Though in the background now,
Will surface on the shore,
The moon will kiss away the salt
From their bony holes.
Let them come out in a moonlit night
To hear the beauty of an outburst,
To see the beauty of an explosion,
Beautiful swell of a giant Satan’s mushroom
Children of Nagasaki and Hiroshima still cherish
The memory of a holocaust
The terrible beauty created by
The “Little Boy” and the “Fat Man”
“In order to shorten the agony of war”!
Allow them
To visit the international shrines of peace
On a smoggy day,
To see the beauty of a lame sun
He is waiting,
Leaning on the crutch to see
The beauty
Of man’s creation,
The beauty
Of a blind grenade,
Yes blind!
But it can kill and blow
The bones and split
The brain and spill
The blood
Of God’s creation.
To feel the pain of a maimed sky after the blast.
Come out of your homes
(They are not secure).
Come out of your homes to see
Or even if you are afraid
Look through the blinds
Of your windows;
(Reality can’t be hidden).
Anyway, if you have a wish
To watch a spectacle
Come out. Peace is dead.
There is no one to bury him.
Come out. We have to do our duties.
We will give him a safe burial:
In the sea,
There he will never sing again
With the rain,
Will never have chance
To dance with the mermaids
In the deep,
There he will never surface
Except as a skeleton on the shore:
To be isolated by the wild waves
As noncommittal break up of bones
And nakedness with blind holes
Lipless teeth, tightly closed, conceal
The absence of a smart tongue
A dumb skull, no skill to hide
The promising smile from a human face.
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