JUST A BARD
Abdul Rashid Bijapure
Urchins as
well as good-for-nothings
listened to
him attentively
The clumsy
man in agitation
talked in
fear rapidly —-
The eastern
quarter of the town
had no water
to drink
The elite
paid to build rockets
to explore
the space and reach the moon.
The pious
chairman distributed
one grain of
wheat every night
For hungry
youth in western slums
who failed to
get work-n-wages
A hundred
people, dark-complexioned,
died in
flood, but nothing happened
The town did
mourn the next week
when eight
fair-skinned got swept away
The town-hall
held a grand function
to distribute
among the innocent folk
proud posters
with a screaming phrase
‘hatred,
Religion, (and) murder’—-
Whence has
this stranger come?
Do such things
happen here?
People asked, and laughed at
him:
‘A mad man is he, or just a bard’.