Friday, June 1, 2018

LILY SWARN



LILY SWARN

THE COBBLER

The cobbler sat hunched

Back bent double

Scrawny bony limbs

Skin shiny

Brown as a berry

Quite like the  sheet of leather lying in a grotesque heap  beside his unshod caroused feet


His short sighted eyes painstakingly peering into the

Fine stitches he  crafted into the

Ragamuffin sandals

The nursery rhyme echoed in my ears

""Cobbler cobbler mend my shoe ...

Get it done  by half past two "

His hands were numb with the

Chilly blasts of piercing wind

Lashing against the flapping

Piece of plastic that pretended unsuccessfully to be the roof for his ramshackle shed!


I staggered and lurched to a halt

Watching the sophisticated lady

Getting out of the long  gleaming car.

She threw down a bag of  shoes

""Mend them in an hour Shambhu "", she almost barked !

I shall be stopping on my way back from the club!

"Yes Memsahib ",He croaked and stammered .


Life went on as smoothly as the wheels of the luxury car

The perfume from the lady's red coloured hair lingered

Blocking the stench of disparity

The stink of poverty cowered in fear !!
Copyright Lily Swarn 9.1.2016






SHE!

SHE

Her own woman

She blazes like a luminous moon

Irradiating the world she revolves around



She is the baby girl who twirls her doting dad

Around her little finger ,lisping love words in his ears

She pirouettes in her frilly pink dress ,the cherubic little miss



The studious school girl next reading till late at night

She is a wizard with computers deftly solving physics problems

While trying out her mama's high heels and lipstick like a clown



She is her own woman soon

Who will not bow to patronizing male superiority

Highest scorer in her business classes

Debating and declaiming with panache

Sassy young dreamer with a cocky gait and stance



Eve teasers give her a wide berth for her judo chops she flaunts

Whenever a roadside Romeo decides to whistle and ogle

Her jeans may be frayed and faded ,her brain is razor sharp

She won't forget a kindness but if you try and act smart

Remember her karate black belt Is adorning the showcase at home



The CEO of the biggest corporate houses

juggling motherhood and foreign tours

Eating at the classiest eating houses the world has ever known

She cooks only if she wants to for her husband does it better !



Her clear eyes speak volumes of the superior soul she harbors

Her gym trained body well toned doesn't need any godfathers

She is the female of the species and is deadlier than the male

Rudyard Kipling knew her ,she won't waste  breath on discussions

Going straight for the kill is what she does instinctively.


I am trying desperately to be like her

For I am also my own woman !
Copyright Lily Swarn 25.2.2017





BLEEDING HORIZONS


Where the sky meets the earth

And horizons bleed to death

Do you see that land of no return

Where Dreams are strangled to death ?



No lark soars up to the heavens

No peacock dances in the rain

Smokes billow in this land

Hunger gnaws at intestines

Crestfallen heads that never look up

Backs broken with the weight of debt



Farms strewn with lifeless zombies

In the lands of bountiful plenty

Tender fingers exposed to blazing furnaces and harsh chemicals

In factories of pretty glass bangles !

Carpets that adorn halls of luxury

Woven with fingers that will

never hold  a book

Eyes that will never read a  letter

No school bell  beckons these kids

Only the horrific bell waking them for more work at break of dawn

Huddled like chickens trussed up for slaughter

Humans living in inhuman degradation

Shylocks extracting their pound of flesh

Coerced into debt bondage

With violence and threats



Africa ,Caribbean , South East Asia

Quarries of Punjab ,brick kilns , mills , factories

littered with faces of abject poverty

Untouchables in the world of the heartless

Coming from realms of God



No man has the right to reduce another

To this life of miserable indignity

Don't let this happen dear Lord

This mortification , this abasement

This humiliation,this shame !

Don't let my horizons bleed !
Copyright Lily Swarn 19.4.2016


LILY SWARN





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