Kowtown Diktats

Count the cows & the cakes
of dung, lynch a few men
every time
you get their tally wrong.

Break their bones,
don’t lose the count
from 206 to 824.

Raid their homes
Defile the graves

Reward the mobs richly with jobs.

Count the members that fail
to rise as the anthem plays
in the dark.

Break their bones,
don’t lose the count
from 206 to 824.

Raid their homes,
Defile the graves

Reward the mobs richly with jobs

In a loop,
keep counting the banned
notes that came back to banks.

Discount the men
and women
who ate
and drank
and shat
and peed
and died
and gave
birth
standing
in
the
queues.

Binu Karunakaran is a poet from Kerala