Two Poems

1. WHO PAUSED MY COUNTRY?

1
On the day of shame,
a fanatic shot at history.
Religion was his pistol.

2
On the day of shame,
people awoke to unfreedom,
that was a victory of sabotage.

3
On the day of shame,
green Naxalites were
put into deterrent custody.

4
On the day of shame
a state disappeared
under armed curfew.

5
On the day of shame,
a fabricated map gauged
waterboarding a nation.

6
On the day of shame,
on the crucible of hate;
an unholy stone was laid.

7
On the day of shame,
A masjid was bulldozed;
persuading it was a shrine.

8
On the day of shame,
Prayers became baleful.
Rituals became obscene.

9
On the day of shame,
people misspelled God.
Dogs were barking out.

10
On the day of shame,
public elected a leader,
on the borders of patriotism.

11
On the day of shame,
a mess of concertina mesh
fenced the election promises.

12
On the day of shame,
Dracon was reborn and
modest citizens disappeared.

13
On the day of shame,
wattage of democracy
sensed massacre of alieion.

14
On the day of shame,
the atheist baptises in blood.
The Theist erases mosaic gateways.

15
On the day of shame,
apocalyptic surveillance dictated
the fate of pauper gods.

16
On the day of shame,
On the day of shame,
On the day of shame,
I am metamorphosed
as an unmindful,
anachronistic,
drowning in the
blood chamber!

In between,
Who paused my country?
Who paused my country?
Who paused my country?

2. TRUISMS

Fear matured
in my mouth like concrete.
I couldn’t twirl
my tongue;
it was stuck
in my dialect.
Household
truisms that
you find what
you pay for.

Words spelled
doom. I have
no gods
to venerate.
Our antiquities
were infected;
I sit on thresholds;
light a cigarette,
as a torch
of impurity.
I am tainted
with a touch of
the menstruating census.

Arya Gopi is a bi-lingual poet who works both in English and Malayalam with more than half a dozen published books including five Malayalam poetry collections. Her first English title Sob of Strings was published in 2011.Her forthcoming books are A Biped Mammal (English poems) and After the Kiss (English poems). A contributor to major journals, she has won several awards which includes the Kerala State Sahitya Akademi Kanakasree Award. A PhD Holder in English literature, she teaches literature at Calicut University.