With Love, from Pakistan

Cardboard corners
wrinkled in white
sewn at seams,
blue ink blotting
tainted with frail fingerprints
I saw my name on it
in restless ruckus
searched for the sender's.

The address read "Lahore, Pakistan"
the lull lilting into a smile
the stitches cut with a surgeon's precision
gave way to a blue gloss
galvanizing the box.

It was a riot of colours
ornate objects
in yellow, green, red and white
a pretty memento
tucked in a corner,
a kurta too
with pink edges
made its presence felt,
the smirk turned wider
till my jaw jibed like a joker's
while my eyes hurt
with a quivering question.

I wondered only if the postman
at the door didn't give a lamentable look
while handing the parcel
sheltered scorn spilling over
from his soul,
guarded by a bulwark
just like the barrage across the border
that might have been the most momentous monument
raised for the purpose of peace
I wondered why?

© Rinzu Rajan

Indian and Pakistani Leaders Encourage Ties in a Rare Visit

The Lost Sheep and their Shepherd

Activism advances
on the carriage of change
amidst colour blindness
a battalion of buffoons
play hide and seek
as per impersonated instructions.
Cocks crow through lurid loudspeakers
candle clay drips in convulsion
as the youth proclaim a parrot's polly
reciting verses in eruptive excitement
and follow as a flock of frozen fossils
behind an ambitious autocrat,
who they have christened as Messiah
or a fairy God mother with a magic wand.

Unmindful of implications that
vilifies their vulnerability
impeaching democracy as a drab,
they launch a leap, thousands of lost sheep,
the wind blows in the westward wilderness
requiring revolution in reckless rooting
they want to cry through corrosion
but how many of them actually know
that they themselves are the rusted relics
of a rotten resolution?

© Rinzu Rajan

Will Someone Spare Anna Hazare a Copy of Don Quixote by Cervantes?---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rinzu Rajan writes in an attempt to sear away from the boundaries of cliché. Research in the field of biology and feminist activism occupy the rest of her time and devotion.