Here’s a soulful protest poem against violence, gun culture, and, by extension, senseless wars, by Amrita, in Different Truths.
The face of Vengeance,
Ubiquitous as dust
On a hot summer day,
Strutted blatantly down
The corridors of life
Never looking you straight in the eye;
Never pausing to reconsider,
Its retaliation.
You, the unsuspecting
Target of its design
Walked fearlessly,
Believing justice did not let you down.
And when of a sudden
You lay pinned to the ground,
It was all too late.
Why does bile
Churn in the gut
And spew chaos
On a million innocents?
Why does the power
To wreak havoc
Thrill the blood?
Why does normalcy
Appear pathological?
And annihilation the only option?
Vengeance was born
On a dark desperate night
Deep in the bowels
Of a godless people
Who had bartered their soul
For a soulless euphoric high!
Where the brain had been
Carved out and crushed to thoughtless rubble-
Where eyes, vacant pale
Gave nothing out-
Where detached limbs
Moved on other volitions-
Where a single hideous purpose
Coiled its tentacles in
Gut-wrenching knots
Impossible to escape-
Till their quarry
Became their grave.
Picture design Anumita Roy
Amrita Chatterjee did her schooling and undergraduate studies at Loreto Convent, Lucknow, and her Masters in English Literature at Allahabad University. She was a lecturer in English to Eleventh and Twelfth graders for 39 years at St. Joseph’s College, Allahabad. Poetry has been the mode of expression whenever she is strongly moved. Her favourite poets are Eliot, Rilke, Baudelaire and Tagore.
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