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.
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