PALLIKARNAI POEMS

Pallikarnai,one of the prominent waterbodies that once provided life breath to Chennai (Tamilnadu, India) is now a garbage dumpyard. It now serves as a moving symbol of how the civilized can threaten the environment.




I

Pallikarnai
Resounds
In the Alps.
Retches the himalayas.

Foams
In the Ganges.
Forays the volga.

Muddles
In the Amazon
Mucks the Nile.

Incarnates
In myriad moulds
And disguises
Around the world.

Masking the demon behind
Hoodwinks the beholder
Letting none to snare.

II

The subjacent hell
Pandemic heaps of plastics
Annals of the soil receded.

Putrifying greed
Kicked shut
The eyes of mother earth.

Clinging the remnants
Eager to sprout
Future laments.

Wailing of
Strangled stars
Unceased.

Abandoned birds
Scribbles the dirge
In the blazing sky.

III

Fire unfurled
Everywhere.

The stretching blaze
Scorched the city
Stoked humen bodies.

Their mind
Charred long ago.

Unable to bear
The acrid smell
Wind collapsed.

Streets whirls around
Stuck in the hounding wheels.

The world
Tosses upside down.

IV

Flies
Abducted the city.

Assaulted school buses

As tanks
Demolished the sky scrappers.

As missiles
Sped up to homes.

In hungry mouth
Dropped bombs.

Eyes were plucked out,
Lips consumed.

Dismayed sky shrunk.
Stars severed down.

Corses
Drifted in drinking water.

Wings are swords
Legs are spears.

Flies.

V
Before dying
Wriggling soil
Asked the children

Would you give
The leafy eyes
Only to see me?

Before the fall
Writhing earth
Entreated the children

would you give
The ears of green trees
Only to hear me?

To the world of the matured
Went the little ones
Searching leafy eyes and ears.

Will they return?

If return
Will the soil and earth remain?