Misplaced Pledges Poem by Venkateswaran Krishnan Sreenivasan

Liquor, tobacco and drugs behave like witches
Spell bound, their victims are drowned in ditches
And deprived of their morale and riches,
End in inexorable glitches

Pests and garbage are comrades in arm
Pestering humans with immense harm;
Littering presents them a welcome warm
And pledges we take on a disease alarm

Pledges and slogans, it is foolhardy to think,
Would scare our enemies even to wink
At our follies; they make the garbage stink
And lure mosquitoes that hoodwink and sting

Mosquitoes are not pets to breed
In our environs, they are pests like weed
In our garden; of garbage around take heed
As much as when you sow a seed

Man made wastes and filth in the streets
Have more to say than the eye meets
Pledges, oaths and human chains are gimmicks
To mask our eyewash tricks

To utter curses against the enemy gun
And to explode firecrackers before you run
Is utter cowardice and not fun
Against killer viruses that always won

Pledges we take being driven to the edge
By fearsome forces we fought to the hedge
Fertile fields we create for our foes
And then play gimmicks to enhance our woes