Poema de Reena Prasad en memoria de Gauri Lankesh. (Countercurrents)

BULLET PROOF

The gun is gone but the smoke reaffirms
This was a salute
This is the way they honor us at our best
With their best
“Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die”
I did not choose to lie here
This corpse with a hole in its forehead
-proof of their growing impotence,
Call it Kalburgi, Dhabolkar, Pansare,
or Gauri, Gorakhpur, Rohingya, Rohith
Whatever you name your shame, I disown it
Take it
Take all the body sieves you fashion
The four bullet holes
Examine their mettle, the free space in them
Compare them with your ink-less metal penises
ejaculating lifeless bullets as you guard your cattle sheds
The cow now has her tail permanently in the air
You put your mouths where you could have planted a tree
I just took a bullet for the remaining bits of humanity
The baton passes on
We will take it forward from here


Reena Prasad is a poet/writer from India, currently living in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates). Her poems have been published in several anthologies and journals e.g. The Copperfield Review, First Literary Review-East, Angle Journal, Poetry Quarterly, York Literary Review, Lakeview International Journal, Duane’s PoeTree, Mad Swirl etc. She is also the Destiny Poets UK’s, Poet of the year for 2014 and one of the editors of The Significant Anthology released in July 2015. More recently, she was adjudged second in the World Union Of Poet’s poetry competition, 2016 and won an award for poetry in the 2016 “As You Like It International Poetry Contest” commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare.