Times Of Tense Reading Poem by A. Jayaprakash Jayaprakash Panicker

Times of tense reading

It is dead times
These Dailies* bring in.
Gory, ghastly and eerie
And at times it stinks.

Nose to nose they spread
Rift, strife and violence.
Democracy breathes hard
To hold this pestilence.
It’s a level playing field
That keeps things at par
Not with the ones who die
For want of a share of their space
But for those heinous ones
That pry on the latter’s pie.

Wars have been won
Elections manipulated
Calamities got salvaged
Propaganda got rebirths
Rifts got ironed out
New rifts got surfaced
and greatness thrusted upon
those who least deserved it.

These leaves of present history
have inked the misfortunes
of the weak and colonized
in spilt blood and spoilt tears.

In these weak times of tense reading
Dailies call the shot in cold blood
The custodian gets looted on a daily basis
And the booty keeps the media goons myopic.

*unhealthy press culture