This poem won the S.Challenge Memorial Poetry Prize, 2012. The award ceremony will happen in Trivandrum Press Club on 12th May 2013. If you would like to attend the function, please leave a comment or mail me directly so that I can send you a copy of the invitation card.
I wrote this poem in one stretch after reading about the Abu Ghraib prison torture.
My uncle Sam is a hefty man.
He has a golden tooth.
You now know why he smiles a little wider.
When I quit the slave’s job
at his firm that buys oil in exchange for food
he held a pistol at my temple
and told me that I have two choices in life-to be killed in a war,
or to kill in an anti-war.
Since both of them involved exploding my brains,
I escaped through the window.
He sued me, for leaving through the wrong exit.
Dad can’t pay a million for the bail,
in dollars, with interest compounded.
My peers at jail were charged for nailing bombs
to non-existent walls, for wearing skull caps,
for stealing bread. Even the deputy’s dog torture us here.
Reader, if u r stil human,
plz tell da policeman
dat i did no crime.
Blossoming Soul 