Close your eyes
Open again
What use pretending friends
While the smoke of sweet enemy flowing in our veins?
Come across my heart
Drive a knife.
You will find the smell of a hypocritical blood
In the sip of a coffee from an imported cup.
For heaven’s sake
Let not compel a ‘bad trust’ to be a thread
Between us
Close your eyes again
Just to know
We are strangers to one another
The yellow leafs of the stormy sky
No storm, no rain
When we close the eyes
In the forest of humans
All is dark and invisible.

Copyright@ Dr Sudhansu Dash

This country divides us.
Only cameos were
displayed.

The ache of the holy river
was your body which
becomes a canoe.

The snow-clad peaks
would smash
the hikers.

Opinions differ,
when the tornado strikes.
You wanted to build a new house.

The black night.
A green silence would
rebel against the stars.

Just past the Rastafarian berry tree
Where bully beef boys tattooed their love’s names
On the tree’s outstretched arms,
A forgotten remnant lay
In relic and rot, its air choked with damp mildew and dust.

Not wishing to join Garvey’s gang
Or bow before Selassie’s seat,
I left Jah’s clenched jig hanging,
Allowed the inkers to indent incessantly,
Going solo into the house of rubble.

What a treasure!
From smudged, stale mascara,
The aged beauty’s heavy, dim eyes
Cast dim shadows on her rough, ***** neck
On which I now trod barefoot.

Her necklace of knackered newspapers
Hollered hoarsely through the overlying cardboard boxes,
Lowly lisping, ”Sovereign shed my lady once was
And shall forever more remain. Look not at her wilted skin –
Consider only this immortal necklace and live forever therein.”