FOR AN AZAD PALESTINE

The world forsakes.

Resistance forged by barrage.

Natives to a cause.

FOR RAMALLAH

Flare in a night sky

Raid sirens, a lullaby

Debris buried crib.

FOR KHORI GAON

The summer scorches,

razed roofs of the destitute

Pure despise, the poor.

FOR NAKBA-73

Resist relentless.

Slice heavens for heavy rains,

Years of fires be quenched.

FOR FATHER STAN

Dissident, set free.

Carceral state, blood awash

lessons, not in vain.

FOR BASTAR

Frictions unceasing.

Blood is shared, that has been shed.

For them, is their earth.

State press, a butcher.

Body-bags bear classifieds.

Prime-cuts for ratings.

Wish colonisers,

sunbathe in white phosphorus.

Weapons in bitcoin.

Narcissist blueprints.

Vista blown-up like our taxes.

Fit for arsonry.

Lies we’ve heard ere long.

While the media brays in praise,

we fend for ourselves.

Ask! Where are our vials?

Cronies suckle, each a teat,

orphans left in lurch.

No means for the poor.

Queues for sick geriatrics.

Save tears for theatrics.

Failed visions of yore,

India chokes on faux dreams.

Corpses as landfills.

Covert ops to fudge

hindus muslims, one in death,

graves adjacent.

Health Minister-Quack

An oath to superstition.

You deride our dead!

Hides from his people.

The prime minister, a swine.

Heresy bovine.

FOR ASIF & JUNAID

A mob, masks a scream.

Bhagwa vandals opportune.

Silence hoists gallows.

Realities conflict,

our nation lays comatose.

Bereavement knells.

Evil amorphous.

Eradicate Brahmanism.

Equals among us.

FOR THE MILK TEA ALLIANCE

Blackboxed abductions.

Kids to overthrow a coup.

Surveil, they prevail.

Free all activists.

Defend our right to dissent.

Upheave the UAPA!

FOR THE SEASONAL ANARCHIST

Fists meet, bigot’s teeth.

Averse to authority.

Aerosol verbose.

Plastic monastic,

Impale firebrand tongue.

Douse malignant hate.

Despots deserve death.

Saffron bully, bellicose

We castrate your kind.

Sea-facing bougie.

Atop your ugly penthouse.

Highest tide devours.

Your fate will be sealed.

Attested to, with our blood

None is forgotten.

Sun-kissed mustard fields.

Their toiling backs, a fulcrum.

Nation waits to lift.

FOR TIKRI

You make farmers wait,

they await judgement day.

Sweets, in every street.

Damn the police state!

the sordid nationalists!

Classrooms for barracks.

FOR AL AQSA

Sandstone red with blood.

Dismembered women and kids.

Satiate appetite.

A fraught nation’s wail,

dampened in victory drums.

The press wags a tail.

No hospital beds.

No shoulders to hoist our dead.

To Midnight’s Orphans.

A sacred river.

Bodies along the banks, buoyant.

Purify, putrid.

FOR SHEIKH JARRAH

Settlers in locus

Colonial focal point

End all Apartheid.

FOR BURMA

Defy the decree.

junta terrorists amuck

Guns in mutiny.

Fiend autocratic.

Lives reduced to statistics.

Wish you gasp for breath.

Shrines in our hearts

Obituaries that fill books,

Doomscroll hapless pleas.

Homage to a shame

they pass the buck and the blame

Your throne, made of bones.

Lie through, silver beard

with each lie, it grows longer.

Cloaked fragile chest.

Ode to opulence

fell the fascist consequence,

Skeletal pylons.

Towering deceased,

are outmatched by thy ego.

Our soot covered feet.

FOR A NEW YEAR

Two thousand twenty,

the year of impunity.

Plagues and bigots.

FOR WEST BANK

Imperium-opium

Stocks smelt to bullet casings.

Peace for Palestine.

FOR TELTUMBDE

Every voice they quell,

Fascist, on a throne of lies

With truth, we raise hell.

No to dominion!

We kill the carceral state.

Free All Activists!

You wolf in monk’s robes,

Our property dare you seize.

Brittle is your pride.

FOR SIDDIQUE

All hail, to the scribe,

Intimidate, fascist state,

We shall power through.

FOR LAWAYPORA

Militant police.

Ravished youth, caskets home bound.

Field day for bloodlust.

FOR GAZA

Curtains over siege,

shellings light a christmas eve.

Carols to stompings.

FOR SUDHA

Where no light does reach,

Trees grow amidst a quarry.

A prayer for your health.

Venomous charade.

Cull the Sangh, and cleave their tongue.

slither to snake pits.

FOR SINGHU

Repeal the Farm Bills!

In fields of concertina,

they plough and they sow.

FOR KISAAN ANDOLAN

Antithetic quite?

Those that only demolish,

Those who only grow.

Farmers brave the frost,

their will burns incandescent.

Fascists they shall oust.

FOR GULFISHA

Lights blind the smug tyrant,

shine the way for times to come.

Sisters, unison.

Vision, polarised.

Black flags, they blackout the sun.

Shadows as equals.

FOR NATASHA & DEVANGANA

Women they surge so,

liberated, is our cause.

Prayers, paper cranes

Caste class, turn to shards

Our fists rise to a clarion

A Blue sky, Red earth.

FOR OUR FORESTS

Vales and groves for seize,

Fat paychecks fuel deceit.

Terraform our doom.

Seismic quakes soar

Cavalry, thousand ton strong

Mottled pillars crumble.

Severed head atop

Half mast mandatory mourns.

Awake! Crimson dawn.

FOR UMAR

Meek voice, made gallant

We are you, as us you are

End inquisition!

FOR SHOPIAN

Camouflage patterns

in splatters of innocents

Crimes of hate concealed

Gashes the gullet,

so your saffron robes they drench,

Splendid anointment.

FOR BABRI

Harmony defiled

From unholy grounds, your God

forever exiled.

FOR MANISHA

A thousand pyres,

Twice born, never once ashamed?

Savarna State

Aureate skies, blackened.

Murders hound around to peck,

Robin sings, fear death.

Cesspits for your creed,

Ministry of Home Affairs

where all sewers lead.

FOR OUR FARMERS

Autonomy lost

to crony machinations.

Demise, of fair price.

Hindutva nation,

From sanguine to dysfunction.

What have we become?

Rabid patriotism

Traitors to Tagore’s muse

obscene obsession

Temples they echo

Lives lost to caste crimes

More an abattoir

Saffron terrorizes

Considered fit to acquit

Supreme injustice

Raze. Set ablaze

On your tainted blood soaked fields,

Your cattle they graze.

Mum mourns a martyr

Ends of her fraying cloth

Wipe her tears away

Khaki pigs perverse,

what if our roles reverse?

Power drunk system.

FOR SAFOORA

Imprisoned are those

In confines of their hate

The fight for resolve.

FOR OUR WORKERS

Winds they erode traces

Footprints of hardships traversed

People of no state

FOR ISHRAT

Scull us towards truth

Part the rivers we will for

You to wade back home

FOR SRINAGAR

Army pellet guns

Boys as balloons in a fair

Barrells shine the sun

Fabricated pity

Art direct our misery

See through your facade.

Damned authority

Ballots reek depravity

Blades test gravity

FOR 16TH BIHAR REGIMENT

A nation we grieve

Minister have you no shame?

Coffins for boardgames

Caste born, borne by fate.

Of conscience, eviscerate.

Smash to smithereens!

Serpentine state press

Fangs on national broadcast

your virtues shed like skin

Media house vermin

Fissures in fraternity

Prime time criminals

FOR THE WALLS OF JAMIA

Whitewashed expression

Our paintbrushes wilt your guns

Do mirrors scare you?

FOR VARAVARA RAO

Words are dreams in gold

For those who go without sleep

Awake through your words

Rightful heretic

A scion of the scientific

Bahujan futures

FOR P JAYARAJ & BENICKS

Faint hearts overlook,

the truth in graphic violence.

Prayers for power.

Bleach! bloodied khakhis

Grave disservice to the crest

your cowardice cloaked

Louts in uniforms

Your fallacies in phalluses.

The thirst for torment.