Meditations of War
Foothills of the steep Himalayan ranges
In the pebbled soil, incensed with rotten flowers
the air shifts the smoky clouds
playing light & shade
I, sit on the chair
plastic, crumbling from the legs between
eyes, wink
slowly they shut
voice as the melting snow
seeps my ears, chills the nerves
the lady takes me on a voyage
to the seas, waveless & silent
inside caves, she asks me to slide
drifting my skin against the ice
freezing the traffic, In the head inside
as a tape record, her voice
I hear it in the day
and in the night, when the moon melts
over the dark fabric of night
but, for the past few weeks
her voice set on backfoot
screams & wounds take the center stage
air riddled with smoke & stench
tanks rolling over perforated bodies
of my comrades
brown soil turns red
souvenirs, pictures of wives & girlfriends
scattered across the battlefield
a farm of sunflowers
littered with the florals of funeral
mother’s scratching their hair
trodding through streets
with pictures of their sons
lost to war, for her
he’s playing hide & seek
how do I then drift
to a paradise not lost
men sacrificed to ribbons
medals, rusted in the sands of time
running films of gore & blood
are what I have now
I am now.
