Monthly Archives: January 1991

The Zoo

Posted on by
Reply

Iron bars, cages and walls of pleasure
Four legs walk in fear as
pairs of eyes watch in delight
Free animals come to watch those which aren’t
a spectacle for the eyes
Man, who separated himself from nature ages back
snatches the children of nature
to entertain his own children
Food without toil
an artificial and permanent shade
No right to prey or be preyed
The hunter and hunted are jointly
showpieces in a cabinet
A place where innocents are put into prison
without a crime, trial or judgement
Yet a life sentence is passed on all of them

© Sunil Rajguru

The Slave

Posted on by
Reply

He sits in front of the computer
presses various buttons –> commands!
an alphabet appears, then another and another
thousands, nay millions appear
race along the screen (and behind it) and disappear
They are all his slaves
living in a different world
at his beck and call…
…or perhaps…
he is a slave of all of them

© Sunil Rajguru

Hunger

Posted on by
Reply

The baby cries a cry of hunger
A cry that vanishes into the night
The mother ignores her blood calling out
and the father doesn’t hear at all
The child who’s playing with himself
looks up and walks to the cradle
with fatherly eyes he looks at
the bundle of flesh
and says, “Don’t cry…
out of all your companions
good and bad
hunger will be the most faithful
so put it out of your stomach
and into your heart
That’s the way you’ll have to live and survive”
The baby looks hard with wizened eyes
then closes them
and with a pained face
enters the world of nod
its only world of plenty
But it has already learnt its
first
lesson of life…

© Sunil Rajguru

The Loss

Posted on by
Reply

The old man in tattered clothes
unshaven with a gangling walk
steps into the street
with sparkling eyes
clutching a few small old currency notes
Suddenly from behind come four men
running and laughing
they gang up and snatch his small treasure
The laughter reverberates around the old man
Who stares at his empty hands
and startled, he screams, pleads and cries
And the laughter vanishes along with the men
But then it returns
as
the old man stops crying
and starts laughing
and walks on
laughing hysterically on his way
and then that laughter too vanishes…

© Sunil Rajguru

The Sad Satellite

Posted on by
Reply

What is the difference between day and night?
To the caveman
they were two different worlds
The sun ruled the day
the moon the night
Then fire was tamed
and its light competed with that of the sun
and we had miniature says all over
in a single night
Then light in a wire came and
changed the rules of the game
like never before
Some day we may have a billion
floodlights everywhere in the world
We’d have a surrogate day in the night
The chief satellite would be eclipsed
Would it become sad?
and storm to the kingdom of the day
and eclipse the sun
forever?
Then what would we do?

© Sunil Rajguru

The Dreamworld

Posted on by
Reply

Night. The eternal sea of darkness
Sleep. The strange boat visiting faraway dreamlands
Lands unknown to science and logic
Islands of desires and fears
The world of the bizarre and the simple
Places not understood, not seen, but felt
Time is at the time of creation or at eternity
or doesn’t exist at all
as don’t the five senses
which are replaced by a sixth sense
that suffices them and goes beyond
to realize a second universe within the human mind
A universe more black, more large, more unknown
more lonely and less understood
than the one that surrounds us
But with the awakening of slumber
Both the sixth sense and second universe
vanish… and are forgotten
and we are left poorer
with five simple senses and one small world

© Sunil Rajguru