Orchestra Poem by Rajendra Nagdev

They sing song of sadness
they sing song of pai
they sing song of wingless bird
they sing tattered lyrics in broken rhythm
never heardby celestial gods

They burn skeletal existance
burn their modest longings
in eight feet by eight crammed shanty

Lash in despair empty tummy kids
wailing for food,
they drink...drink...and drink
to forget for few hours
their life sentence
for uncommitted crime
pronounced at their conception
in mother's womb,
their duties-serve all
status-born slave
rights-don't diserve
masters-all but themselves
race-non human

Town cleaners
condemned to drag life
in uncleanest hamlets
beyond periphery of town
what an irony!
no, not for great civilisation of pious beings

They sit around fireless hearth
gaze with blank eyes
dropless dried pitchers
too impious to plunge in village well,
a vast burning desert spread in their eyes

Tears don't trickle
they know it is futile

Lost in vast ocean of helplessness
they sang songs of sadness
with lowered heads thru centuries,
they are untangling now
strains of tangled exhistance,
have founded their own orchestra,
will sing their own songs-
song of rising sun
song of winged bird
song of real freedom,
beat their own drums

Will invoke volcano
with million serpentine flames
invoke magma to spring
flow in village alleys
flow in temples
flow in town streets
flow on highways
flow everywhere
destructing bondages thrust on their innocence
thru black centuries of dead times

Stream of molten lead will flow
they had plenty poured in their ears,
a reverse flow will strike
diaphragms of oppressive ears
make them listen stories of their black deeds

A dream?
yes, stepping into territory of reality.