Poet: NITISH NAIR

MISSIVE

The desert night murmurs,

Sounds of silence and somnolence

punctuated by muffled sighs,

Solidified by the power of grief,

A wind whispering through the dunes,

Meandering, fickle river of air

gently nudges the day’s oppression –

a stifling envelope of heat –

towards the ocean of yesteryears,

Yet another day brimming with

the toil of survival evaporates

into a serene nocturnal embrace,

Stars, flickering crystals embedded

in the blackest of velvet,

Astral abodes of ancestors,

Too distant to seemingly matter,

Nevertheless, ages of benevolence

softly drizzle on earthly tableau,

Quickly absorbed by a parched truce,

Fragile, precious in its darkened delicacy…

…

…

Swayed! Jolted! Shattered!

Ethereal fabric sundered by

menacing whine and smoking tails

of torrential pain, parochial

in intent of terrestrial annihilation,

Launched from cold metal tubes

supported on rigid mounts,

Iron or flesh-and-bone,

Operated by unfeeling hands,

Guided by minds long dead,

Caring for nought but a crescendo

of distilled, instilled fear,

Erupting in a calculated coda

of targeted and collateral damage,

Geysers of sand, mortar, humanity –

Yellowstone for the morbid and damned –

Proof that justice has been served

a la carte, itemised and priced by past crime,

One final meal of self-righteous vengeance

until hungry bloodlust rises again.