You say it all When you say nothing at all

To whom this may concern.
You say it all
When you pay
that migrant's train fare home.
You said it all when you were seen

concerned at the Vizag gas leak.
You say it all when you sit with them

in their villages over a kullad of chai.
Or when you ride that local train home.
Not in that enclosure
Where drones of flying footwear chastise
the chaste utterance of good sense..
You say it all
When you are the microphone
To Raghuram Rajan, Abhijit Banerjee
and other elevated minds

that slipped through their sieve.
That's when your voice comes shining through.

You're not you when you say it like him

And the other fellow. And the other.
Giving tit for ratatatat.
When you dribble clever lines dipped in vitriol

that can never match his.
Not because you cannot. No.
Because vitriol doesn't sit well on your tongue.

It doesn’t. That’s not you.
Stop forcing your tongue into his mouth.
Not nice. Not you.
Hold that tongue instead
In your hands
that reach out.
Put that tongue into your heart
Which we think is in the right place.
Stick that tongue on your feet.
Walk their talk as they say.
Good to have talkative feet.

You must know.
You're not Duryodhana's mace.
You're Krishna's flute.
You're not Goliath of loud voice,
            heavy armor, sword and shield.
You're David the shepherd boy
With your harp and lute.
And that innocent little thing called a sling
With those nice smooth stones
Of compassion, empathy, insight, earnestness, grit
That brought Goliath down.
Take aim with those nice smooth stones.
And then fling.

Don't step down
as some say you should..
Step up. And up. And even higher
Not to the throne. Not the pedestal.

Step up to the halo.
Like your mother did
When she refused the kingly crown.
Be the halo
round a good head
Democratically picked.
From all those fine minds.
You have many

With fiscal abracadabra beyond the charlatans of now.

Arjunas to your Krishna.

Young lions rarin to go.

Those with the gift of the gabardine tongue.

Those who are possessed of the DNA

Of a body we respect.
.
Forget the one that flew over
to a wishful gain.
Set up pedestals for those who  stayed.

Do it soon. Do it now.
Before this dusk turns to dark.

Corona Castor Oil

SILLY SONNET SEQUENCE

Corona Castor Oil 1

Mama Gaia is giving it to me
Not one table spoon as it used to be.
But aerosoled straight into nose and lung
Till that mournful requiem for me is sung.

Stay home, she says for all the world now fears
The flatulence from all those sinful years.
Let then, the privy of your conscience be
Privy now to yesterday's gluttony,

Greedily going after the golden grain
Now being flushed down that commodious drain.
And the carbon footprint you left behind
Is sure hurting where it should -- your behind..

Go gaga-google get that 5-G goo.
The Groaning Green now gifts those groans to you.

****

Corona Castor Oil 2

Is CCO working in unholy haste ?
Flushing out excess: keeping what we need:
A slimmer wallet and a thinner waist.
The purging of all venality and greed.

Is CCO singing that sweet ole song
"Mid pleasures and palaces you may roam,"
Keeping you locked indoors for just as long
As for you to know: there's no place like home!

And as you jaywalk on the streets today,
You make the highway your promenade.
All fossil fuels and fumes on holiday.
Keeping those promises you never made.

And when the price of crude cries down to zero,
It's not you but CoVid 19 the hero.

****

Corona Castor Oil 3

I'm counting now my days of purgatry.
Evacuating putrid poetry.
Will the bowels of my advertising days
Be ever cleansed by Gaia's ruthless ways.

Will Corona clean up all that gory
Thrust and parry that found its rightful place
In Capitalism's hoary story:
The bloody motions of the market place.

Will competition give way to courtship now?
Wooing target lover, not fighting foe.
That's what you're doing  under lockdown now.
Your brand' s now making love not war you know?

And if this be bullshit and upon me proved.
Ivan never writ. Shakespeare never loved.

Sacred Mischief

Crown of thorns.

Plays hopscotch on the map

To my peekaboo.

Masochist me

Chained to my immunity

Says it's okay.

Feels good, somehow.

Scourge me more.

It's okay.

See.

Blue skies up there.

Down here I see forever.

Look! paradise flycatcher!

Peacock on my bonnet.

Lion caressing asphalt.

Nice game He's playing, uh?

Sacred mischief.

Game or lesson?

We're learning.

Now The lotus speaks.

Shawl-wrapped utterance

Soft as the voice of an angel.

Lend me your weeks.

And then.

Some more of that please.

May Three Twenty Twenty.

Commanding mendicant begs.

Some more weeks.

And yet some more.

Masochist me.

More's okay.

See.

My man's on his knees.

Not on his qwerty.

Swabbing. Not jobbing.

Yippee!

Is Forever here now?

No milk today.

Spending's ending.

Ending spending.

Credit card sleeps.

The jingle jangles.

The fiscal smile curves

Down. Down. Down.

Laugh Out Loud.

LOL. Ello Ell.

Hello Hell?

Have some fun.

It's okay.

Now. Now. Now.

Fashion me those blinkers

So I will not see.

Will not hear.

Them who eat the daily sweat

Of brick over brick.

Gloves of grime.

The back breaking load.

That screaming hollow.

Hunger walks. Home.

Enter Bleeding hearts.

Fifty thousand at last count.

Conscience balm.

Caritas. Agape.  

Manna from heaven.

Thank you. And you. And you.

Feeling better now?

It's okay.

The Lotus speaks once more.

Soft as the voice of an angel.

Breathing a lesson unheard:

The Crown knows no religion.

No religion the Lotus said.

Unheard before. Hurrah.

No Kalki on white steed.

No Abramic ash from Gomorrah.

Forget the Garden.

Shaheen not Jallianwala.

Welcome amnesia.

Of all that went before.

CAA CAA Cacophony.

To inflamed ears.

The Crown sees no line.

Alleluia. Jai Hind.

A fair scourge.

Hate wiped clean by death.

Then hit me more.

It feels good.

Death with its gentle persuasion

Whispers a comforting word.