Sadeqa Ghazal



A Simple Modification

The spring of love gushed fast
thick, sweet, and cool.
It’s easy ways and grace
soon cloyed your senses.
With bricks of abuse
you walled up its way,
with the mortar of hate
you choked its frothy flow,
with a cold concrete slab
slammed shut each pore of escape.

Love can't seep through,
love can't ooze out,
love can't flow free.
If you need me
I will be there-
not in love my dear,
only in sympathy.

Another Democracy

Sunken eyes, rake thin limbs,
busted lungs, shrivelled skins,
slouching in chairs, sprawled on benches,
rushing up and down the corridors,
or slipping past others quietly.
Nothing is asked, nothing needs to be.

Equality is the norm here for
age, sex, caste, wealth do not matter.
All are in the same queue, shuffling
amid yells and raspy whispers,
paying the toll of co-infections,
earning stamps of misery on faces.
In the land of Awe Inspiring Dominating Sovereign
all are truly equal.

In the end,
all they want is to live.