Oh! Nadezhda

Infatuation

A robust voice on a gloomy October evening announced
your passion for freedom and humanity.
A rush of rhetoric swept away the university premises.
My dispassionate numbers drooled over your firebrand.
1% : 22%, 0.1% : 11% are men : wealth in America,
a curse of 21st century inequality.
The promise of America is between the sky and deep sea.

Love

I saw the dawn of proletariat; good morning my Nadezhda!
Let us wake up now as opportunity knocks at the gates.
Let us incite against $7.25 wage when billions are in profit.
Add your acerbity to the fuel that just ignited a fire.
Our voice got sharper at the altar of Government propaganda.
there, we burnt the brightest.
Your flame kept me warm all night long, thank you!

War

On second day of occupation, the cold wave of penury hit us.
At the street corner, we met with Jesus Christ, exhausted.
His crucified bloody body rebelled, still being kicked by greed.
He offered love to starving kids of main street.
And, I struggled against a few strong Men but could not save my love.
O Nadezhda, is this the end of us?
War is still on all the streets; how much love left in you, Jesus?

Death

The funeral is the end of your one life cycle but not your humanity.
Red and white flowers on your grave are our shared memories.
A bunch of tired but unyielding wills,
low sound of your flapping wings.
A march of our infatuation, love and war and your grande finale.
Goodbye my Nadezhda.

Happiness

I

I searched happiness in-

pale yellow pages of history.

    Abraham Lincoln was weeping
    on hallowed ground of Gettysburg.

    Loud gun shots silenced Gandhi
    and Martin Luther King.

eternal meditation of the saints.

    When looked at the face of silence,
    I saw children of Newtown in a pool of blood.

II

I marched along side men
and women who shouted "Azadi."
Our voice thundered hearts of evil
in Cairo, in Benghazi, in Tunis.
Then, I swam to Homs via Jerusalem
in the river of tears and sigh.
I saw my mother
in every smile and wrinkle of unknown women.

Promise of a paradise on earth haunts me.
I am a son of a cruel revolution.
Bit by bit, metamorphosis of every
thunder and promise into hollow dream.
Happiness is an eternal struggle.

III

I made friends of all sounds and colors.

Our crescendo ignited the dead of the night.
We danced to the passion of youth and acid.
All became one!

In the morning, we became different again. 

Every molecule mocked at me with utter disdain.

My only hope was in the denial of reality,
so, I built prisons in mind.

IV

I kissed my girl-
sometimes in sweat, sometimes in mud.
Her every loud cry defined me.
As the symphony of our frenzy faded,
I looked at her brown eyes without thrill.
I woke up and off to run a few miles
on the curves of the city.
I searched happiness on those curves
of less human but more spaces.
I drained myself and
found lucid dreams in sleep.

Youth and acid,
tears and revolt,
love and sex,
dream and death;

Happiness lurks.