Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
Silent Witness
By Divya Manocha
The voice is an instrument-
An instrument of change-
Instrumental to change.
A balloon, inflated with opinion
now deflated by societal dominion.
No longer free to express
neither to the people, nor to the press.
Only free to watch mankind regress.
There’s been a drought on my tongue
for not a word has been said or sung.
Sweat saliva needs to flood
to satiate the rage in my blood
for a sound that will sound the alarms of society
an alarm to wake from impropriety.
My true colours expressed by speech
now begin to bleach.
Rust is now the only colour-
the colour of my voice box.
That which produced words of steel
has fallen prey to the clocks.
It’s a loudspeaker put to mute
Virtually of no use
Truth has blown a fuse
Now fake news is no new news
there are too few of the true views.
In a society where walls crumble
if only I could spare a mumble:
“resist!”
Photo credit: Anita Jankovic
Memory Lane
By Divya Manocha
All I had to do was retrace my steps
to walk down Memory Lane-
parallel to Remembrance Road
and a few miles off Conscience Coast
An open museum of familiarity,
a nightmare lacking any clarity,
an exhibit displaying moving images
of yours truly through her ages.
Some were complete and painted clear
others obsolete, with just a smear
The gallery walls were interrupted
every time a gap erupted.
A void formed when I forget,
when my memory bank’s in deep debt.
The wall-hooks are still strung
for more paintings to be hung
The colors that bring the paintings to life
are none other than love, hope and strife
and the window lighting flickers
every time my memory bickers
about what was and was not
remembered and forgot.
I search for the museum’s curator,
but it isn’t until very much later
when I was really shocked to see
that she introduced herself as ‘Me’