'Why is the King Parading Naked?

 

The propped up demo king

Has been haughtily parading

On the wide royal road

Drumming up his assumed success

At each occasion with gaudy excess

He is ever in showy mode!

Wearing his medals on pompous chest

Displaying them around, people miss lest

Crowding both sides in load!

His face fills the TV screens

Channels are singing him hymns

Print media stands in valet dress

He is enthroned by countrymen

He thinks it was his own acumen

Has charmed the people and press

Has gladly put on his head the crown

His dumb arrogance is amply shown

Sufferings abound under crushing duress!

Intelligence and bureau are so superbly laid

To utter a whisper lips are afraid

By ideological folds many are blind

All around rises cheering noise

As the showman steps in grandiose

A child stands at the fence behind

Whatever the media and agency claims

‘Mummy, the king is naked!', he exclaims

The innocent saw the truth, others couldn’t find!

Xavier Bage

Wed, May 30, 2018

Blood in the Brook

 

Oh Mahua, my dear sister Mahua,

Why did you enter the forest?

Of all the options under the sky

Did this seem to you the best?

Many a times as curious child

you had been to the nearest wild

To watch the uncommon birds

And strange flowers on bushes!

What pulled you to live there?

Surely, it was not to find rest !

What prompted you to carry a rifle?

Was it to play normal childlike trifle?

What pulled you to sleep under trees?

What turned a village belle into wolf?

Visiting in darkness only to find food?

Tho’ poor we are, our hut is our nest!

Oh, those tender feet and hands!

What dragged them to rugged lands?

Whatever taught you to lay mines?

What made you trigger killing blasts?

What taught you to handle bombs and

 Filled violence in your angelic chest?

My brother, a sister can you forgive?

Village didn’t remain a place to live;

For me, after the villain violated me

The arrogant son of the moneyed man

to avenge myself I needed power

and the forest embraced me with jest!

It was a silent half moon night

When the CRPF sneaked in might

The fiery encounter beside a brook

Reddened the pure water flowing

With blood from bulleted comrades

Mahua, amid them in the death fest!

Oh Mahua, my dear sister Mahua,

Why did you enter the forest?

Of all the options under the sky

Did this seem to you the best?

Xavier Bage

Fri, May 25, 2018

When the Sky Turned Grey

I think of thee every moment

Thou though hid from my eyes

Art closest to my yearning heart

In every lowly action of mine

In every little step of my walk

Thou hast a silent sure part!

When the sky turned grey

And the stars went to rest

When the cuckoo sang its praise

In the sleepy mango grove

Could I float in useless thoughts?

‘It’s a new day!’ refrain the rays.

When the orphan child tender

Looked into my eyes with hope

Thou stood beside kind stream

Beckoning to the shady tree

We trinity sit together beneath

Talking of the last night’s dream!

                                                       
                                                          Xavier Bage
                                                         Thurs, May 17, 2018

Why Not?

 

If you ask it - Why not?

Yes, that’s the question!

The know -all knows the answer

Yet, he makes it a huge function

Before the enchanted crowds

In a democracy, any chai-seller

Any soil- tiller, any cobbler to name

Can possess this gumption

To sit on the top job chair

In this nation of 1.20 billion!

The Young Man is “immature”,

“His mind’s on seventh heaven”

He’s always mocked at, laughed at

By the graybeard in open and in den

Day in, day out, inland and abroad

No chance is missed to belittle the little

What makes him so afraid of

The greenhorn, chip of the old gen?

That sonny boy rules his thoughts

Of all the derided bunch of men!

To an insistent query the boy replied

If the numbers allow, he might

Throw his hat into the ring

Is it wrong anyway or is it right?

In the past we’ve seen many

Grow up to the challenge they face

In democratic arena it’s the people

Who choose their leading Knight!

Can you or I call our people fools,

If they decide to change their plight?

Xavier Bage

Mon, May 14, 2018

This Side of the Forest

 

He robbed me of the little money

I had, and left me penniless poor

He was too strong for me

Though fought, I could not fend.

What can a pauper do?

I couldn’t go to the police

Only money is able to make

Them, their uncaring ears, lend!

I see the culprit arrogantly walk

Before me with swollen chest

With a crooked smile on his lips

 In his pocket he keeps the cops and courts!

My belly shouts against the injustice

But the voice can’t touch him

He is ensconced on a concreted throne

Smugly secure behind seven forts!

He travels in the air like gods

Trotting the distant lands at wish

While with the few impotent coins

The grain grocer I fear to face

Revolution, revolution I hear in the air

Who will bring it to me ever?

The gun carriers roaming the forests

Will they dawn dignity and grace?

Xavier Bage

Fri, May 11, 2018