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Demo(no)cracy

by Roshni Muraleedharan
(Thrissur,Kerala,India)

O! Judgment, don’t judge me fair.
When I talk, don’t stop but stare.
Thrash me hard. Don’t appreciate.
For I speak the truth, the truth that’s bare.

For all those screams, I have no thrills.
Withhold your WOWs, I know no trills.
I speak of flesh, blood and bones,
Of name-sake lives and barren wills.

A clap from you might kill my plot.
Your smile will create a blood clot.
I need no precious tears from you.
But your tooth and nail for a hapless lot.

For them, I beg your voice from you.
Some words, if you can spare them too.
They have some stories, epics to tell.
Some old as earth, some fresh as dew.

They have no battles to sing about.
How fight, when you can hardly shout?
All they’ll speak is about long lost dreams.
That drowned in blood when strangers fought.

Of water, food and air to breathe.
A little land to lay beneath.
Of a roof against the sun and rain.
Something but fate to bequeath.

If you are moved, then lend them eyes.
Grant them vision of the filthy dice.
That rolls all day deciding their fate
And stop at lust loot and lies.

Don’t stop there! Grab their limbs or hair
And drag them to this deadly fare.
Teach them the game that rules their lives.
Show them how the tortoise could beat the hare.

Support them more each time they fail.
Lest they quit before hearing a hail.
Tell them, 'the game is dirtier than the dice'.
Where, a player’s coffin has no last nail.

And when they learn to live the game,
Forget you, who taught them the same,
Fall a notch lower than their predecessors,
The ones they rose against, with no shame,

Forget the routes their roots once took,
For water, trying every trick in the book.
And quench their thirst, theirs alone,
With water they seized by hook and crook.

Remember O! Judgement, don’t think you are done.
For, now your work has just begun.
There are many more lives as good as dead.
There’d be many more after you’re gone.

A life for all is at the rainbow’s end.
All you can do is try to lend
Voice, vision and a helping hand to some.
Save them from the clutches of the fiend.

Let each one be the devil himself.
Cheat you, the rest and oneself.
Cheated you may be, but don’t feel so.
For aiding the devil, don’t curse yourself.

You’ve merely done what was asked of you.
Tomorrow, another will do the same anew.
Fuelling the vicious circle of life
Can be stopped by neither me nor you.