India Poem by Shirani Rajapakse

Terror Nadu’s eunuchs huddle in the Lok
Sabha impotent to the cries of a thousand and one
voices in the valley up north. They dance

to the tune of the nautch girl
from the south now too old to lift a foot, an arm
in dance so she wags her tongue instead.
Terror Lalitha the fat wields her truncheon and a few
hundred innocent tourists are molested
by her mob. It doesn’t matter
that some are Tamil, the kind she is trying to save.

She has no cares for the likes of anyone
from her neighbour. The vote is all she lives
for, has been doing so for the past
several years. She is nothing and everyone knows it,
an old actress with naught to show her worth,
except a widening waistline, millions
plundered from the citizens, yet few want to
voice it. The battles in Terror
Nadu are fought over political fault lines

Lalitha vs. Nidhi the corrupt
who hides his shame behind sun shades
and goes into battle to rule with no care for
the people on the street. Refugees
raped and killed in camps

in his own home while Delhi’s old men
blinded by power and hate bend in supplication to
the false Gods from the south.