The language of our confrontation,

Well, there is another million sleeping with dreams

Of footing with us tomorrow,

When the autumn will set in place,

The thick patches of our blood will be

Covered under the yellow leaves!

You have fired so many shots;

We are still not pulled,

Your tanks have rolled upon a lot of us;

They are further on the move,

Our hope will push us towards

These giants of metal without “emotions and faith”

With the pronouncement of blood for liberty as our jingle!

Let my land soak all our blood

Make it lush for realization of a dream,

Oh no! The Reality of tomorrow I connote,

This is the dream of our past

When the autumn transcends into the frost,

Of the laborers, this time the snow will preserve

The patches of our blood, keeps the spirits of our

Farmers and clerks alive!

An evil bullet has targeted the retina,

Of our another combatant,

Whose vision gets brighter and takes us

Miles frontward towards the next summer,

A summer of lakes, gardens, flowers and exquisite evenings,

A Summer of identical body perspiration and equal rewards,

A summer of Justice, no more for the few

A summer of my dreams

Before he falls down to another shot in his belly,

Passes on the batons of defiance to her!

She marches forward with baton

Like the women of tomorrow and Rosa of the past,

In desperation of a coming defeat,

The noise from their tanks and the roar

Of their air jets are thunderous now,

Though we walk determined

Towards our monsoon,

While they keep us silencing,

With their bullets and drones,

Another millions of us who were

Asleep in dreams of footing have roused,

To the call of the final monsoon of liberation,

Liberation of the farmers

Liberation of the workers

Liberation of you and me

Before the patches of our blood on the land

Gets washed away in the rain,

Making the soil fertile

For our farmers to

Sow the seeds of a crop for all!

I see Fascism Coming

I see Fascism coming

In the pool of blood of fetus

From the womb of their mothers

Shedding on to the streets

I see vagina’s screaming in horror against the barbarity of saffron trishuls

Breasts suckling red blood

even before babies could be fed

Yes from a distance close enough I see fascism coming

This time not from Weimars Germany

but from Gandhi’s Gujarat

Soil has no static culture

I turn sides in my bed

Reading the history of past

connecting Gujarat to Germany

Muslims to Jews

Who calls them enemy?

The chain of historical fascism unites them together

Surrounded by the countless others.

Yes I see fascism coming and knocking our door steps

Images of Qutubbin Ansari and Annie Frank

their many sisters and brothers, dampen my eyes

I wipe out the tears with a handkerchief of spirits and passion

Yet fascism looks to be tomorrow’s reality

and the piece of cloth stained in red imitate the fascism I look at through my eyes.

I see the skyscrapers buildings in Ahmadabad from the windows of my room,

And not miles away from there,

the deserted farmlands with a plant of Nano on it,

the miseries of farmers ,who grew their crops on it once

and their malnourished children, do not escape my sight

I see fascism in those skyscrapers buildings with paints of fancy colors

Hiding the cracks on its walls.

Yes, I see the fascists coming

Before I sleep into a dream

harboring a new crop for the fields where industries stand now.

 The Journey around the Clock

Unwinding the cells above the blinking eyes

Boarding a ferry hooked at the corner of time

Preparing to float around the hands of c lock

Spreading over a decade and more

There are infinite harbors engrossed in the oblivion’s of time

Some violently lonely and others full of noise

The shadows are still reflecting a thousand objects

Who were left by with time

Each one of them leaving a mirror

Forming a distinguished image

Some similar, others very differentiable

Some prized some unworthy

All these tightly clutched into knots

Forming one self

As the ferry floats on the surface of time

Balancing the weight of melancholy and joy

Again of the hush and sounds

The cries and laughter’s

Of the deep and shallow

Of the frost and dry

It passes by the terrains of sufferings

With the script on its rocks

Protected by the legacy of tears

And the thin forests of contentment

With bright leaves glimmering in yellowness

Absorbing all the beautiful images

Of the old lady and the young girl with snow on her face

It ignores all the calls of the time and refuses to move in compliment

Slows down at the deepest stream of past

Unbalancing itself against the ills of future

Prepares to get drowned at the deepest point

Encompassing with it all the images formed

Some in the heart some in the mind

Some with elation some with soreness

Tear mixes with the water up surging the ferry

And the smile loses its relevance in the same formation

As its sinks deeper and deeper

The sound of crackling comes off the mirrors

With it fades all the images

Barring the one in search of which

The eyes were blinked and the cells uncoiled

This will find its place at a corner beneath the water

Till the time this river dries

And loses itself in a dark oblivion.

Death Stalks On The Wall Of My Room

Bierut is burning inside the bulb in my room

Children of Gaza shot right in front of me

Grotesque posters of those killed in Afghanistan.

Blood on the walls of my room.

On my wall

In my room.

Can you see the dead Blacks lying on my floor?

I must wear my spectacles to see

So I pick mine

Only to see the world burning in my room,

The smoke choking my throat

I have become schizophrenic , I think

Perhaps, that’s why, I cant see the dead in Paris

In Lebanon, in Baghdad, in Gaza

In Syria, in Afghanistan.

The world would christen this as my Schizophrenic imagination

They will take me to a doctor, tell me that everything around me is fine !

But I know, like you know, it’s not just Paris that is burning

The world is burning.

Like you and I.

About the Poet

Asad Ashraf, a full time journalist with Tehelka Magazine. Having studied conflict resolution, his interest lies in International and national politics. He is also working on his memoir of living in a Muslim Ghetto in Delhi for over a decade. His friends call him an occasional poet, Since he writes poems occasionally to shed away the burden of frustration he carries in his mind against the society in which we live. He would rather call himself an amateur poet. He derives his poetic inspirations from poet like Habib Jalib , Faiz Ahmed Faiz , Pablo Neruda, Agha Shahid Ali and other poets of resistance.

The post Poems by Asad Ashraf first appeared on Prachya Review.