This World

In a world

where cackling is

nation building,

where progression is 

an unending résumé,

where hollowed out 

mountain is development,

where truth-telling is

unequivocal cheating.

In such a world,

life is a hearse,

stuck in a traffic jam.

Waiting (dedicated to Doctor Uncle)

The earliest and the faintest memory

I have of you, is you listening intently 

and diagnosing your patients

in your meticulously set medicine shop,

while I'm waiting 

on a wooden plank by the counter.

You handed me a mint candy

and promised

that if I wait calmly,

you'd take me to your home, 

to which I smiled like a patient 

relieved from a latest asthma attack.

Decades later,

things have changed drastically.

The shop is no longer there -

neither are you.

However,

I'm still waiting on the wooden plank,

in the middle of what is now a road,

faking to unwrap the candy.

Starvation

The Manna Salwa

that was, yesterday,

drone-delivered 

reeked of mould.

We had to sift 

the breaking news

from the legumes.