From then on in that land,
never a flower bloomed.
Freedom, Framed
Let me hold that smile of yours
And place it in a square frame
And lock it away in time
A frame of perfect order
That silences the chaos around
One that reminds us
not just to look both ways
but also into each other
for a smile to be found
For in that smile
lies our freedom, framed
The carpenter and the winemaker
I have heard the story
of a carpenter who knew
to make the best furniture
with his dozen men crew
Most of them used to do odd jobs before.
Some say that one of them even
used to be a thief.
The carpenter never judged
or wighed the baggage they bore
gaining in return, their love
and utmost belief.
The carpenter used to say great things
Years of working with timber,
cutting open something
in which once life lingered
and envisioning a furniture
in that abstract form
must have triggered open
a memory
that was once forlorn.
On his off days, the carpenter
worked with grapes
He crushed them and kept them in the
barrels he built with inner forest oaks.
Others wondered why.
Until that day they were
served joy in a grail.
People asked the carpenter to share
the wisdom of the trees he knew.
They heard.
They saw the sound.
They got a glimpse of the unknown
and it was something new.
Because of the speeches, the royal
Furniture orders were delivered late
The furious king summoned him and
He was tried to decide his fate
No one rose up to call a spade a spade
He was executed on a wooden cross
which one of his own crew made.
On the third day of the cross,
Some saw leaves sprouting out of it.
Others saw birds perch on it and sing.
Carpenter was nowhere to be found
No one understood how he went missing.
The tree grew fast and tall
From it, never a leaf did fall.
Creatures seeking a
compassionate shade
not just visited, but always stayed.
Under that shade they heard whispers
of what the carpenter had said.
The tree became an art that lived.
For art, art could never be dead.
Art in the time of corona
Fascism started with a cough
caused by all the strangulation.
Some of them stopped
breathing altogether
because they were
no longer allowed to.
It attacked all the voices that rose
and observing silence
and observing in silence
perched within your room
of convenience
was the only way to escape it.
But then there were idiots
who called themselves artists.
They were hunted down and
later made into trophies that
their killers would give out
Their ideas were quarantined
lest they infect the others
and change them inside out.
From then on in that land,
never a flower bloomed.
It rained,
But never a rainbow was seen
It pained,
those with no shoulder to lean
The food became dull,
with neither sugar nor spice
so did beauty, which became
bland to the blinded eyes.
And when the real virus came,
the one that didnt discriminate,
not a poem was written to
quell the suffocating hate.
As fear came creeping in
while they took in every breath,
not a song was heard
to ease their sweet release to death.
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