They The Forces, The Furies We Rage Against Poem by Raj Arumugam

They are the forces, the furies we rage against
and whom we make glad if we go quietly into oblivion
they, the forces, have enclosed us in little bodies
and left us exiled on a vast continent.
Soiled and muddied and with wax in our ears, dirt of sin
between the toes and in the cracks of the skin in our heels
soft dirt in the foreskin;
and our function, dear souls, dear soul,
is to rage and to rage unabated.
It shall put strain on our bodies
yet we shall rage
and it will pull the skin in
and muscles and tissues and testicles
and yet we shall rage;
it will tire the mind and sink the eyes and cheeks
and pinch the veins and crack our bones
and yet, dear souls, dear souls,
we shall rage, we shall rage and rage.
For we are not done with them.








(from The Migrant - notes of a newcomer (February 1997- July 1998))