Voicing rage

For the third session focused on Amrita Pritam’s ‘Not Today’. Through this poem we looked at anger, rage and resistance. Participants wrote their own responses by travelling to their own internal ‘Nilchander Valley’.

Raging louder

by Joao Godinho

I still can't hear it, but I know it's there,  
growing and growling,  
drawing plans and escape routes.

I want to open the gates so it may infect,  
arrest, stir, but it's not time yet.

The pressure has to rise,  
the reasons have to pile,  
so when the time comes  
all excuses are neutered.

From now on,  
I'm raging louder.  
Silence is loud again.

The end of small times

by Joao Godinho

Human!  
Long chain of DNA with intent  
I am here at your behest,  
but today I bring portent

You parade your artefacts  
and call it evolved progress  
I assist with metals, tracts,  
fuels, minerals, and stress

You debate concords and wars  
and sundry cultural declensions  
I provide oceans, outdoors,  
sand, forests, and mansions

You are consequence  
You are blight  
You are amplitude and servitude  
And the abyss is your shadow

I am obsequence  
I am fright  
I stand acritude and inquietude  
Yet find peace in a meadow

I am mother, you are child  
I raised you to be free  
but your love is defiled  
when all the love is me

No more. I'll soon die.  
And when you seek haven,  
as a mother, I will cry,  
but still send you black raven.