The Pariah Dog

The Pariah Dog

I don’t want to be your pariah dog
Or, for that matter, your sacrificial hog.

All I want from you is some respect
Of a clean grown-up kind and aspect.

No, I don’t want your stale bread crumbs
One of the many you cast to your chums.

No, I can’t go everywhere to please you
Late nights, award nights, party nights, too.

I want to be a free bird not a pariah
I want you to know that, now, yes suh!

If you don’t want me around just say so
I will only be too glad to disappear, to go.

I don’t want to be your pariah dog
No, it won’t look good on my daily blog.

(A song in Soul, Rhythm, and Blues (SR&B) Style)

FOR YOU SOMAN, R.I.P.

For a cousin brother who died recently:

FOR YOU SOMAN, R.I.P.

In a ward smelling of imminent death
You died; the doctors gave up hope
I am devastated, broken, brother
It could have been my tormented soul instead
God took you, the wrong man, and left me here.

All the days we played in the courtyard
Spent time together talking nonsense
Are those days gone and buried forever?
Will there be no repeats of those times?

We grew families, put food on tables
Working extra hours to pay the loans
Neglecting ourselves, for our wives and children
Till wrinkles, grey hair reminded us of time running out.

I was shocked to see you on the hospital bed
Looking a pale grey shadow of your self
Doctors said the disease has claimed you
And it’s today, maybe, tomorrow, can’t say.

You, brother, were a heavenly beam of light
Here on earth for infinitesimal time
Here we met in the interregnum of birth and death
And then you faded away and died.

Soman, my brother, rest in peace.

A Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year!

(A Song to be sung Dylan style to the strumming of a guitar.)

For the people of Syria and Iraq displaced by war

A Happy New Year!

For the families of people who lost their lives aboard AirAsia QZ8501

A Happy New Year!

For the 141 military-school children, murdered in Peshawar

A Happy New Year!

For the hundreds who lost their lives and possession in floods in Kashmir

A Happy New year!

For the family of Michael Brown, killed by police in Ferguson

A Happy New Year!

For family of Steven Sotloff and Jim Foley killed by extremists in Syria

A Happy New Year!

For the homeless, old, starving, and dying without caregivers

A Happy New Year!

For the people of Ukraine trying not to let their country be split in two

A Happy New Year!

For the girls kidnapped and raped by extremists in Nigeria

A Happy New Year!

For the slaving construction labourers in the deserts of Arabia

A Happy New Year!

For sick people and people undergoing life-saving surgery in hospitals

A Happy New Year!

May the New Year be one of hope, caring, giving, compassion, and faith

A Happy New Year to you all!