Anupama Raju

Stories

Ruins tell stories
of a child too, once playing
before her head rolled.

Heads rolled like teardrops,
settled amidst razed rubble.
Dried under dark suns.

Dark suns won’t set. Days
freeze in smoky silences,
caught in still eyeballs.

Still eyeballs or bombs?
Toys of anaemic ideals,
but bloody war games.

Aftermath

A body under
a threatening heap of hands
breaks into pieces.

A hungry vulture
picks on the silenced pieces
till they come unstitched.

A greedy mind feeds
on aftermaths of terror.
A poem is born.