A bleak, black, endless expanse
A shifting mass of sand and tar.
It sits there, always there,
never far.

It is inside all of us; it swallows everything
like a black hole devours even light.
A well that can never be filled
A hunger that leads to our plight.

We see it everyday, governing our world
from the shadows - watching and waiting.
It stalks us like a lion stalks a deer,
ready to pounce as soon as we give way.

We give way when our hearts let in the darkness,
the refusal to believe in other human beings as kind and real people.
It is like a grave we have dug
for ourselves, a grave made
out of forgotten but unforgiven heartbreaks and amply overused ashtrays.

It is that armour which we wear to
ward off emotions, that misusage of
our soul akin to mending a bullet wound
with a bandaid.

It is the hunger felt by the stress-eater,
It is the feeling of disgust felt by the bulimic.
It is the beatings from parents or siblings,
It is the rationalisations and the excuses by the victims.
It is the space which is left
After a part of us dies along with someone else.
It is the trauma, the fear - the void
IS, and always will be, here.

And it's terrifying.

A red, hot mist; a lit match
To a puddle of gasoline.
Anger is a beast, frothing at its mouth
Hungry, hateful and lean.

It is in the husband who beats his wife,
physically, and verbally;
It is in the vitriol we spew
At each other detrimentally.

It is in the xenophobe,
Who cherishes resemblances
And apprehends differences.

It is in the people,
Who segregate into a familiar tribe
Unaware of who tortures us all
Unwilling to unsubscribe
From the delusion -
'I am right, and you are wrong'.

Ire smolders beneath the surface
Until the surface is no more
And all that is left
Is a charred, blackened sore.

It is as corrosive as a vat of acid,
It will burn you to the core;
It will destroy all that is inside you,
And nothing will be left to restore.

Infuriation is a many-headed dragon;
Devalued, unjustly accused,
Hungry, hated or powerless,
Ashamed, anxious or defenceless.
Demeaned, disgruntled, upset;
These are all emotions
That lead to ire and regret.

Yet, it is also self-preservation;
In an unjust world,
It is the burden of a whole nation.
It is the sense than informs you
When you are being cheated;
Like the sensation of burning
Upon touching an object that's heated.

Yet, unknowing and uninformed
We are always at each other's throats;
The establishment is elated,
In the embers of society, it gloats.

For, in this insane, deluded world
Happiness is a rare consignment,
A moment amidst the chaos,
Not a constant incitement.

We must look beyond our petty squabbles
And realise there is more to deal with
Than each other's issues and troubles.

Anger is as addictive as ******,
And just like it, it feeds on vulnerability.
Should we unite against our common enemy
It would mean invincibility.

We should not target each other;
Instead we should aim at those
Who have brought us here.
Those who steal, lie and control;
If they cannot, they will cajole.

It is those who have turned life
Into a rat race which nobody will win.
Divided we are controlled,
Unaware of the power within.

Yet, you ask, what if we were united?
Imagine, a whole world's anger
Aimed at the right mark;
That is what I propose,
Before it is too dark
And humanity swallows itself whole.

___________

Beelzebub is not a demon, nor a God, nor a fallen angel.
Beelzebub is avarice, ****** and lies
A symbol of everything wrong with us
An unconscious, repressed compromise.

It is easier to believe in demonic spirits
Than to accept that the demons may be a part of us.

War is not brought on by spirits
It is brought on by scrupleless men.
Rights are not swept away or given back
In magnanimous, false gestures
By Satan, or by Leviathan
It is so because of scrupleless men.

Turned against each other, fending for ourselves
Told to work to live, to buy our rights back
After they stole them from us.
One day, the walls of the rich
Will not be high enough to keep out the poor.
Not all the guns and bullets in the world
Can stop people with nothing left to lose.

The demons are the lies
We tell ourselves before we sleep
They are the comforting untruths
That are buried deep.

The demons are the living
They are plotting and deceiving
Dismantling, bit by bit
Every single thing we should stand for.

No spiritual surrender, no quarter
We must rise, not bow to law and order.
The fate of the world is ours to define
It is time to cross, not toe, the line.

An unstoppable agony, a contorting creature of pain
Lies within you; your life
Had very little sunshine
And quite a lot of rain.

Yet, like a phoenix rising from its ashes
You survived; within an inch of your demise
You found the fortitude to rise.

I am clueless and awestruck
At your inner gentleness, your external grace;
You are an inspiration to our entire race.

Where others would hate or fear
You attempt to love or understand.
You have conquered my heart
And occupied its land.

Like rainfall on a parched field
You rejuvenated my soul.
You reclaimed me from the darkness
Before it swallowed me whole.

There was a fly once, who felt
A yearning and calling for more
He saw a falcon above him, with gigantic wings and golden feathers;
Like him, he wished he could soar.

He told his brethren about what he saw,
lighting up as he told the story, completely in awe.
'Falcons are rich in plumage, large in size;
Do not look towards the heavens,' they said,
'But look at what is within reach for us flies.'

The divergent fly, unsullied by his comrades,
was determined to go beyond that reach.
'There are many of us, and fewer of them;
what borders can resist our breach?
The falcon may be more sought after,
its beauty and its splendour unmatched in nature.
But we are the flies; without us, the world
would simply be a pile of trash,
unrecycled and unreturned.'

The flies rallied, and the insects followed suit;
the world a seething mass of buzzing wings and agitation.
The working creatures of the planet, in sudden organisation
With one, sole aim; to overthrow the kingdom of falcons
And lions and predators of the like.

A conclusion to this conflict, none can predict
Yet one knows for sure
That no king or queen can endure
An onslaught of angry mobs
For we are many
And they are few.

A dictatorship in disguise, a sultan in a suit;
Obey, comply, now repeat after me.
Pay your taxes, do what we say, go to work,
And then tell yourself, "I am free."

There should be no gods, there should be no kings;
Only man. Man, and his expression.
Yet money rules all, dividing and conquering
Promoting oppression.

We are afraid of the enemy attacking from outside,
Wary, like a skater on thin ice;
Unaware that the enemy is the one
Who demands allegiance, at a price.

Blindly following, never questioning;
Is this the world we are to bring children in?
Innocence won’t last, humanity won’t be itself;
We shall be an empty shell, hollow within.