if i

if i die tonight
the ailing woman in my house
will mourn over me for a year.
the calls will ring in
till all lines are exhausted.
the biting opinions i have
over every political, social issue
will be shunned, lowered with
me;
the books on my wall, distributed.
i only expect my poetry,
just as biting but a little
didactic, to be remnant
in a decade's time.
by then the maggots
will have gone through my bones.
i will be a distant memory
who will come up in late
tea conversations as an aftertaste.

ifi die tonight,
i will be buried by tomorrow.
save a few,
i will be forgotten overmorrow.
let me not in the belly
of this earth till
I AM DONE.
i will die when i do.



I wonder how they say the world is fair

I sit and breathe, drinking the toxic air
The air that this city heaves on my neck
I wonder how they say the world is fair

It seems not more than an abysmal snare
All I see are souls in havoc and wreck
I sit and breathe, drinking the toxic air

I want to ask… I do… but do I dare
How greed and lust and vice to keep in check
I wonder how they say the world is fair

It doesn’t really take too much to care
We forget we are no more than a speck
I sit and breathe, drinking the toxic air

No one does view people in distinct layers
All akin yet all ranked like a card deck
I wonder how they say the world is fair

You who say good and evil are a pair
One is scarce while the other is in pecks
I sit and breathe, drinking the toxic air
I wonder how they say the world is fair

Hanzala Mojibi is an Indian poet and writer from a literary background based in Delhi. He believes in some serious things like voicing the voiceless; and some non-serious things like the crunching of dead leaves healing the soul.