Although we are forefathers of self acclaimed
first world nations but We are third world
In their so called socioeconomic indexes
and other “modernity is the real development” indices
We don’t do dinner parties
But dream of a well fed day
Our Children study on the floor of old public school
Know the other world by the greenery and
Figures hung on its pale walls
They wish to run on the velvet grass
Instead of rag picking every morning
As children leave old toys you have abandoned us
Here a child gets mature in his teens
He recognises the outline of a dark futuristic structure
In a pattern of present dots of daily burdens,
In the tragic repetitions of a homeland song
He dreams of a young entrepreneurship but
A termite death hollows out the roots of endeavour
You say to our men “Keep It In Your Pants!”
And to the women, “Lock Your Knees!”
But here sex is the only amusement we can have
For three minutes of relief we are ready to repent for life
Corruptions and immorality are in full flow here
Although Some taxable souls fashion to run charity
The poor wears tattered clothes
But rich wear them to look different
There is an agreement between the person sitting in the car
And the poor begging for some help
Devalued lives Full of shadows Of slaves
Where poverty live without evacuation
We are caught here in the web of the foreign aid spiders
We prop up this capitalising protuberance
And force feed the bourgeois class
Our propaganda has become just to see and sigh and cry
Civil war is source of political life and death
We don’t turn palms upright to foretell futures
The line of our hands has become undefined
We have Failed to understand the kind of battlefield
We are in and our weapons to deal with it
We shout for freedom of expression but never tried to know
The difference between our skin and our Lips
We are a nation that sighs and cries for debt relief,
A divided country, Brainwashed by anti-propaganda
Its leaders becoming millionaires every second,
And the people, poorer every minute,
The land filled with milk and honey,
Still cries “no money”
Our self styled media with fake morality
Aiming for PR and controversy
They interview a petty thought repeatedly
To make it a philosophy
Their voice spreads pure venom
By wearing gentle dress
On the throat of third world
In the name of so called minority
Every news is labelled with religious stamp
They highlight the immoral as a face of nation
Belittle the good-intentions
Sex and violence is a new form of Entertainment
Here big lawyers and corporations openly
Influence in the demo-crazy capitals
To gain huge profits
Is this injustice with poverty and suffering
Not a clear indication of false thoughts
That argue over a Third World at this juncture.
——
Sandeep Kumar Mishra is an outsider artist, poet and lecturer in English Literature. He runs Kishlaya Outsider Art Academy. He has edited a collection of poems by various poets — Pearls (2002) and written a professional guide book — How To Be (2016) and a collection of poems and art — Feel My Heart (2016). Recently his work has published in the New England Review, Society of Classical Poets, Permafrost Journal, Human Touch Journal, Blue Mountain Review, International Times, Literary Yard, Mud Season Review, Verbal Art, Stone Coast Review, Asian Signature, Chiron Review, Convergence, Harbinger Asylum, Helix, High Plains Register, Literary Orphans, Marathon Literary Review, Phenomenal Literature, Quail Bell, Really System, Red Fez, The Brasilia Review, The Criterion, Third Wednesday, Ygdrasil, ZOUCH Magazine & Miscellany, etc. Visit his website and blog.