THE ONES

A woman cries tears for a broken world…

She cries, then she dries her eyes

And then, she rises,

again and again

Even when they tell her to cover

unholy beauty,

Cover unholy skin

Because they philosophize that her beauty is ego

They keep you trapped in the mind made ghetto

Made you believe there’s nowhere to go

So you give them your power and

Live in fear till the final hour

So I do my dance for you,

Sing my songs for you

I speak of…

Bright saris and onyx eyes cries of pleas

From barren fields to crowded streets

The rich encroach and the poor retreat

Deeper into the slums of the disgraced,

Displaced, the purposefully erased

The ones driven off ancestral lands

The ones, unaccounted for…

Farmers with nowhere to farm

So darken lives move to the bright lights of the city

Then find themselves sleeping on pavements,

Scavenging for food and the half-smoked bidhi

The ones, unaccounted for…

Red ribbons in jet-black hair

Soaked in coconut oil

Shiny in the sun,

as they toil and toil…

The jingle-jangle of her Bengali bangles

Street cables in tangles

The carrot continually dangles

Watching on TV what the Haves have,

And the Have-nots?

They crave and they never have

Its cruel, creating these ideals to reach

And then creating the conditions

To make these ideals never attainable

Its cruel, the way Bollywood teases the poor

And the poor eases their grief

With this ingrained belief,

“ This karma dictates this life that I live”

So the faithful ignorant believer believe…

That hardship is destined to The Ones….

The Ones working under the heat of day

For less than a dollar a day

The Ones raped of hope and yet still pray everyday

The Ones hustling tourists all night and all day

But corruption thrive in the ignorance of The Ones…

So they keep the powerless, powerless,

Keep the dark, without light

Keep their pennies, make them penniless

Then they invite their friends over and say,

“Hey, there’s a party over here.

There’s lots of cheap labour,

Just tell me what’s your flavor,

You tell me what you need,

I’ll be sure to deliver,”

So why would they educate the poor

Give them tools to think and see

Why rock the boat?

When its sailing so smoothly

On the old vessels of the East India Company

Its warm in the cabin up there

Even if the water below is the razor cold

Temperature of misery farenheit

But ‘its alright’ , they say

‘It’s just the way it is…’

‘It’s just a caste thing…’

‘Better luck next time…’

You see, a hungry belly and an educated mind

Will question and revolt

The invisible monarch will topple and fall

If over a billion stood strong, united and tall

So, they keep it as it is

They say.

‘Who will live, will live,

Who will die, will die...’

And the boat keep sailing the deadly seas

And my beautiful sister

Sis, where are you in all of this?

You’re a pawn in this social disease.

You can be bought and sold like herd

You’re only seen and never heard

You’re like a faint echo from an unsung battered lip

You’re the first to awake and the last to sleep

The pain in your heart as you silently weep

The cry of …The Ones…

The ones toiling the land with her on her back

Toiling the land with her two bare feet

And at night, with her last ounces of energy,

She serves her husband’s needs after all that

Or a child of fourteen,

She’s sold by her kin,

Her young flesh pimped on red streets

To vulgar vultures hungry for sweet virgin meet

I see your eyes

And I feel your thirst

And I know you ask,

‘Why do men come first?’

Who made these riverbanks burst?

I carry your tales with this pen in my purse

To write the stories of your courage, your

strength, your sweat and your tears

And you say to me, ‘To live in drudgery..

is a rural woman’s legacy...”

So you accept the unacceptable,

Grace disgrace with your amazing grace

I ask myself, ‘ Could I last a day,

If I lived your reality?’

I don’t know if I could….

So I close my eyes

and I walk the shoes

of The Ones

feel the feelings of The Ones

The Ones as you

The Ones as me

The Ones are we

We are The Ones..

We are The Ones,

Responsible for The Ones,

Standing up for The Ones,

They have less so we can have

More, and more, and more and more ….

So we are The Ones standing up

For The Ones

Because we are all The One.

#TheOnes #SpokenWord