Lock up the door.

Telephone love to come early, the hurricane is on it’s way

It has its eyes set on melanin, colours begin to wane

Let me lock up the door in this villanelle, history is ashamed today

You stood on the pedestal, red hands fleshed out with hate

The only syntax they ever mustered, was what is your surname?

Telephone love to come early, the hurricane is on it’s way

Time begins to echo the murder counts, they sealed the freeway 

Another blood spattered journalist, in a country of pawn-littered lanes 

Let me lock up the door in this villanelle, history is ashamed today

My neighbours hold their doors for me to celebrate 

Love transcends the opium of the masses, as Babri Masjid’s rages

I telephone them to come early, the hurricane is on it’s way

I once read a poem about lovers encased in summers of deodar days

Prayers in Urdu, Kashmiri, Hindi ground to dust in the pellet haze

Let me lock up the door in this villanelle, history is ashamed today

The wildfire charges in with partitions we cannot erase today

Ghosts of power seek the privileged again, rest of us in our own rage 

Telephone love to come early, the hurricane is on it’s way

Let me lock up the door in this villanelle, history is ashamed today