A Litany for the Rains

there’s crazy music that rains down every nook and corner of the universe

there’s crazy music that shoots up along arteries on both sides of the skull

it is like vines of dark time

it is like the darkest flames from the darkest chambers

did the newspapers not tell you this?

soon, it will be numbers – 9, 11, whatever

and names, Vinitha, Glastin, whoever – history books do not focus particularly on proper nouns of these sorts.soon, ministers will dole cash. maybe even some dog biscuits down choppers like they did when it flooded in yet another wanton country – one that they burn just like they burn yours.

and when,

dusts and clouds unsettle all maroon twilight between your eyes and mine – between now and then,

the guns will strengthen the frame a bit more

the chimneys will kill the skies a bit more

we will learn to hate a bit more

we will learn to love a bit less

and yet, and yet,

in another mad dream, where the binaries break and battlefields fade apart,

all along those heavy hallways of time, on its rigid walls that stare

there will be eyes, bloodshot, gazing at you,

who killed

there will be backs pressed against those very walls – human backs against stern walls

there will be chests, heaving, pressed against the muzzles that you hold –

human chests against cold muzzles

and you, who loved

and you, who lived

to mourn the dead

to live on

for the dream, the dreams, to make happen

for the killers to be pushed back, inch by inch

down the cliffs of void, but not of forgetting

into the coffers of nothingness where they belong

we know not if there will be butterflies fluttering about the branches of the tree of life

but we know this, that a bit of that strange, crazy music

will play on, all along its deepest roots..

Atindriyo Chakrabarty is a poet
http://atindriyo.blogspot.in/