by Indran Amirthanayagam
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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
At some point on the road you understand
that nothing can stop you from walking ahead,
from drinking the sap of each tree, feeding
the animals and birds, loving each and every
companion on the planet, even if some want
that nothing can stop you from walking ahead,
from drinking the sap of each tree, feeding
the animals and birds, loving each and every
companion on the planet, even if some want
to skin, burn and rape you, this is not
their fault, the murderous rage has a cause,
a root, and you must do what you can to plug
the bottle from which the malicious genies
are flying out. So go ahead, vote, write
to the paper, get the school board to listen,
be active, react, take the punch and remain
standing. This may be easy to say but it is
the only way to reply to the tyrant who
will become a bully and then a coward
and will leave by the cover of darkness.
It took twenty four years for Assad, but
those years are gone and now the chance
to rebuild. Take it. Look ahead. You are
alive still and able to teach, to write, to make.
Indran Amirthanayagam has just published Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). El bosque de deleites fratricidas is forthcoming from RIL Editores. He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.
