The goddess

Senseless killings, wholesale or isolated;

In the name of race, religion or territory.

Sanctified , legalized or extrolled; not condemned.

Oh, way- farer, you’ll never find peace anywhere!

Go there to the temple, pray and meditate.

Compressed darkness of thousand nights,

The idol of Goddess, bloody her eyes,

Rocky breasts dry, feet on a corpse,

Comet’s balzing tail of scattering hair,

Mouth agape, fangs just out, tongue a flame.

In thousand hands she wields severed heads,

Weapons and explosives of every description,

Nuclear bombs branded by names of

All the one hundred odd elements discovered.

But none’s raised to bless or protect.

Way-farer dazed, a dwarf before the goddess.

His right leg was growing like pipe-line

To raise and knock Her down, but he couldn’t.

He crawled out in dismay dragging behind

Weight of his leg hurrying to disappear in the crowd.

(Image: A colour lithograph depicting Kali with a necklace of skulls standing on Shiva. Source: Wikipedia)