Anthem

(with some help from Francis Scott Key)

The home of the brave
And the land of the free
Are waging the war
From the river to the sea

An Admonitory Letter

(from the president of the USA to the prime minister of Israel)

Hey Benji
Don’t kill so many civilians
It’s giving me a bad name
And here are the bombs
Not to kill them with

Oppression

The more I write
The less I am read
The more the numbers
Coming out of Gaza
The more the numbness
In the world outside

War Criminals

The war criminals
Who created
Among other horrors
The standing boy of Nagasaki
Have no compunctions
Having the back of
The war…

Proportionality

Thousands of Palestinian men
Have been eliminated
Thousands of Palestinian women 
Have been murdered
Thousands of Palestinian children
Have been butchered
Yet it takes the deaths
Of six foreigners
To generate so much
Oh, so much outrage:
White lives matter

How many Engineers does it take?

Long ago
When I joined 
Engineering college
My Mama asked me
If I knew
How to fix a blown light-bulb

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

(The world is one family)

To be able
To empathise with the suffering
Of people you cannot see
To grieve for a child, a parent
A brother, a sister
Not your own
To try to shine a light
On violence far away
Even as you face violence
Here and now
To do…

Unconscionable

Eighteen is an age
That would like
To change the world
So, if we can count
The eighteen-year-old
Conscientious objectors
In a country
On the fingers
Of one hand
How can we expect
That unmentionable country
To have any sort
Of conscience?

What’s in a Name?

I enjoy a sumptuous breakfast of
Dosas, chutney and molagapodi
In Gaza
Yusuf, Yakub and Ibrahim
Don’t breakfast at all

Agency

The machine would
Have us believe that
You and I are small cogs
Replaceable
Of no consequence
In the scheme of things