Anomie
In a never sleeping metropolis,
In the dungeon of a room,
My days and nights are locked!
I am a traveler on a street, with no end in sight,
But just the bustle of the moving crowd,
And a handful of burnt dreams for company
My ‘kingdom’ is in the third floor,
Of an old street building,
Now languishing in neglect,
Facing dilapidation,
Just like my own life,
In the chronic agony of existence!
While the adjacent buildings,
Renovated and restored
Mine, under a bankrupt landlord,
Is on the verge of instant collapse
Looking through the chinks in the wall
And craning my neck
Over barricades of buildings
Amid the swirl of traffic,
I get a glimpse of the slum below
In all its squalor and dirt,
And a medley of lousy images
Bleeding into one another like water colors.
Now and then, I see,
Beggars in bundled rags,
Along cracked pavements.
Some squatting,
Some sleeping away to glory,
With street dogs coming to share
The leftovers in their begging bowls
And lick their wounds!
Sometimes I take away my glance
From the dismembered corpses of the dead!
On another side,
In plush residential colonies,
With landscaped courtyards,
And cerulean swimming pools,
Sentries stand on guard
To admit 'Sahibs'
Sliding in Mercedes and Rolls Royce!
A little far, in the open balconies
Of star hotels,
Men toast goblets of wine!
Oh! What stark divide!
This grave imbalance is so contemptible.
Woe to the society where there is widespread anomie!
Copyright ©
Valsa George
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