Pallikarnai Poems

Pallikarnai,one of the prominent waterbodies that once provided life breath to Chennai (Tamilnadu, India) is now a garbage dumpyard. It now serves as a moving symbol of how the civilized can threaten the environment. I Pallikarnai Resounds In the Alps. Retches the himalayas. Foams In the Ganges. Forays the volga. Muddles In the Amazon Mucks the Nile. Incarnates In myriad moulds And disguises Around the world. Masking the demon behind Hoodwinks the beholder Letting none to snare. II The subjacent hell Pandemic heaps of plastics Annals of the soil receded. Putrifying greed Kicked shut The eyes of mother earth. Clinging the remnants Eager to sprout Future laments. Wailing of Strangled stars Unceased. Abandoned birds Scribbles the dirge In the blazing sky. III Fire unfurled Everywhere. The stretching blaze Scorched the city Stoked humen bodies. Their mind Charred long ago. Unable to bear The acrid smell Wind collapsed. Streets whirls around Stuck in the hounding wheels. The world Tosses upside down. IV Flies Abducted the city. Assaulted school buses As tanks Demolished the sky scrappers. As missiles Sped up to homes. In hungry mouth Dropped bombs. Eyes were plucked out, Lips consumed. Dismayed sky shrunk. Stars severed down. Corses Drifted in drinking water. Wings are swords Legs are spears. Flies. V Before dying Wriggling soil Asked the children Would you give The leafy eyes Only to see me? Before the fall Writhing earth Entreated the children would you give The ears of green trees Only to hear me? To the world of the matured Went the little ones Searching leafy eyes and ears. Will they return? If return Will the soil and earth remain?