Mastery or misery
The hits upon me
Scenes cut on the dancefloor
Somebody is calling for more
Honours are rolling like calls
And curtains are falling on shoulders
The heaviness is heavy people carrying heavy things
And lifetimes the continuance of temerity to bring,
The New Age and some Christian sing songs
At Christmas for the fort around my heart
And drones of warfare torn apart
For the silence of nights with the hills of shame.
England has now names and castles
But tomorrow is an I.P. battle
And the contest is won on a weekend TV Show
For all the girls to derby what horses I don’t know.
Are is can can?
Is ‘R’ the voice of the life span?
Who will read, my textual feed
When Bibliography is Buddhist with dharma?
Did you sell India’s karma when the stale bread was divine with cost?
How is the produce numbered by Wallahs, who estate pride in foreign affairs
When a prison ship would evoke an old age loss?
The names have distances and the places wear good attire
Come down they say for the belting of a Squire
Millions and Billions, Millions and Years
Millions and Newspapers, anticipation and famous people’s fears
Repeated. Defeated. Consciousness has electrical elocution lessons
For the men with the beards and Vikings overseas lost without means to please
Beers. Beers and more beers. Beers glorious food! Alzheimers, Cancer and Custard!
The mellowest light is forgoing, the remembrance so tight of being all knowing.
Humans are not robots anymore from the 80’s dancefloor
Robots are big in Japan and they lend the waiters a helping hand
Poets can come from Pakistan, even if they are Pakis from British lands
And robbery can be at the button, so that dogs can snoop overlords for Goa and African mutton.
In a million years from now life will be free
From the Industry of people and their faces.
Then the sad dress of the tightest fanning to impress
Will be Sati for all the assured disgraces.
Fires that burn are not fires in the night
And measurement is not love in the haste of too many talks:
But when Fitzgerald was great he left room for truth,
So white jackets could know polity and grease heavenly proofs.
Some truths shall not fade as Desdemona claims every Willow
Such is the price for Scotland to ask twice, for freedom for Wallace after the show.
There is always tomorrow
There was always nothing
Some families need no Ganges;
But when the name was used
And Krishna’s stories were abused
Silence became the confused
And Dao answered with China’s entrance and dragon, profusely.
Welcome to the 21st Century
& bid adieu to the English of wankers:
Here is a decision for investment and oil
To tank the banking with some oily cases.
The F.B.I. race and Angels that care
Over and above the oxide stares
Of selfies and big-bummies and the British quip chill
Girls are still the best readers. Still and still,
Cumming for the bumming and strumming
Like a humming that annoys the Gods of Greece
For 90 years of electric Synods and some spoilt lazy Priests.
AI Summary
The poem explores the tension between spiritual longing and cultural collapse in a world dominated by spectacle, war, identity politics, and the commodification of everything from religion to sexuality. The speaker moves through England, India, Pakistan, China, and the West, weaving together references to drones, Sati, Fitzgerald, Desdemona, and modern media to show how history and myth have been flattened into entertainment. Beneath the satire lies a deeper grief: the sense that humanity has lost its centre, that faith has become fashion, and that the poet is left to navigate a world where mastery and misery coexist in every line. The poem ends with a recognition that the 21st century is loud, confused, and spiritually thin — yet still full of people trying to read, love, dance, and survive.
Wild Stage 