Madhu Raghavendra's Poems

 

Oxygen 

I am not sure how 

to say this in a flowery way.

This may not be poetry

for readers to review 

or for critics to comment. 

But there is no poetic way to say

that people are dying merely

from lack of oxygen supply

in this second wave of COVID.  

There is no poetic way to say  

that the corporations and 

governments that bring us 

stolen, refined, heavily taxed petrol, 

or cobalt mined by children in Congo 

for phone batteries, 

or children-mined mica from Jharkhand 

for glittery cosmetics, 

could not merely bring oxygen 

for the sick. 

Thinking of colours

a Pomeranian’s head stuck out 

of a speeding car window white

the misprints on 

the election manifesto black

a cab driver opens 

the moving car door, stoops 

and spits on democracy red

the lines more real than equator

the farmer's palm reads brown

a pen crushed under 

the government's sole

leaks blue 

the long pipes in the sky

from oil refineries fumes yellow

the dead air space these days

does not grow green.