Sounds of Living and the Dead

Do human beings only want graveyards on the face of this beautiful earth? With just about any reason to justify it. It could be religion, geopolitics, hegemony, hubris, world domination, strategy, business. Even if it entails sacrificing a whole populace, a country, people? Render devastation, and look at the lurid satellite images and say “It’s a small price to pay.” And if it’s a difference in colour of the skin - it’s no price at all. And if it’s someone who takes the name of a god you don't believe in? Huh, why ask? If it’s the west, the reason is commerce and supremacy; if it’s central, it is religion and angst; if it’s east, it’s an ancient philosophy of power; if it’s the far east, it’s simply a place in the sun; If it’s up north, it’s what you do to keep one’s power circle intact.

 

There are as many reasons to kill as there are people. We, the ultra-ordinary are the simpletons, crying over poetry for the right reason, directing our angst in erroneous directions.

 

At every point in our lives we are dispensable, our nullification rendering not even a murmur beyond the next spring. 

 

All we can hope to do is to seal our ears and turn to the ones we love the most, and bless ourselves with the air and the light and drifting leaves and shifting seasons and find our joy. Everything can be, and is, vapour. We should walk our hard ground till it lasts.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which are steeped with anguish  -

• Crimson Flowers in Jallianwala Bagh 
• The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together) 
• The Power of No 

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com

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The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Evacuation by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/8118-evacuation
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license