TendrilBy Sreya Sarkar
Decenniums descended,
Brave women marched with men
Shoulder to shoulder
Azaadi looked within reach
Palace walls crumbled
But a turret grew there instead
Its snake head sissling
Keeping watch on all
Tightening its grip
On men, women, children
Some escaped
Into the folds of wealth
Sheltered in connections
Others had nowhere to hide
They worked in the streets, and the fields
Exposed to the strict police gaze
The masters needed the shroud of virtue
To veil their craving
They made it law
Loose gowns,
Tight headscarves
A pretty young one
botched the command
Her tendril escaped
The gaze weaponized it
Looped it to choke her
The zhins moaned in agony
Beat their breasts
Lit a bonfire
Jumped in, one by one
A neo-futurist architect and AI
Imagined a mane of hair in the wind
Is the gust enough to place it in Azadi Square?
Can the snake be decimated,
the blood washed away?
Will the “flowing free” replace it, instead?
Very intense poem
बहुत धारदार है ।
बहुत बहुत बधाई ।
I learned a lot from reading your poem. Azadi Square is gorgeous.
You paint the real struggle of the tendrils very well. It is sad that a few men can still treat there cultural kin poorly and disrespect their human value. Your last lines so you are not hopeless but your hope is fragile. It is in a chaos waiting to be resolved.
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Amazing…
Very intense poem
बहुत धारदार है ।
बहुत बहुत बधाई ।
I learned a lot from reading your poem. Azadi Square is gorgeous.
You paint the real struggle of the tendrils very well. It is sad that a few men can still treat there cultural kin poorly and disrespect their human value. Your last lines so you are not hopeless but your hope is fragile. It is in a chaos waiting to be resolved.