in

A stranger: A poem by Supriya Bansal

A man, faded away, breathed his last, in a remote isolated site, all-alone 
his plea for assistance flopped ‘n floundered, fell to a zilch, for he was long gone  
Was scorched ‘n singed in the crematorium, nobody shed a tear, nobody wailed ‘n moaned 
a name ticked off the list, another life razed down, subjugated ‘n overthrown  
Why O’ why, I feel disheartened ‘n dispirited, I hole up, snivel, sob ‘n cry 
He was a stranger, how can he rattle me so, unsettle my earth ‘n my sky 
Extraneous ‘n expendable his existence, he was left to rot, left high ‘n dry 
Had a lesser god devised his world, a lesser mother birthed him perhaps, I sigh 
Why people didn’t rush at his beck ‘n call, why stratagems were not his to command 
was he just a cog in the wheel of a greedy ‘n greasy chain of supplies ‘n demand? 
To toil ‘n labor, from dawn to dusk, not ever ask questions ‘n pretend to understand  
A somber sorry life, a dismal ‘n diseased death, fate always dealt him a bad hand 
A stranger’s death jolted ‘n jarred the bedrock of my subconscious, rummaged my thoughts  
I drudge ‘n delve to hold on, my mind tied, trapped, tangled in these mussed-up knots 
Will I ever fathom the conundrums of reality, be prudent enough to join the ambiguous dots?