Silent Film (Act 2)

SILENT FILM (ACT 2)

Twitching motion
Animated life
Through a polygon

Voices unheard
Actions seen
This - the language

Wide-eyed, spectral
Laughter 'tween
Faces worth seeing

The key's last note
Clap, Thud, Clap
The room goes dark

Memories stay
All the scenes
To dream a dream

Hijra

Hijra
by Tilok Adnan


She walks as a woman
More pronounced
Bangles hit her thighs
Those that swerve better
More pronounced

"Tread lightly" isn't in her vocabulary
She jolts along the crooked sidewalks
Where men struggle to jog
Her struggle is the quota she must meet
Preferably through empathy
More often than not, it is
Found in sympathy or annoyance

She is not a beggar
She demands like a woman
More pronounced
She is confident that
This is who she is now

A closer look at his adam's apple, adamant
There is no guilt in wanting livelihood
His face shines through her long hair
She must have inherited his nose from her father
His chest doesn't protrude as much
Only what her bra allows, like a woman
More pronounced

Her genitals a mystery
We assume that it's his
Her rolling eyes in rejection
More pronounced
Than a woman's

Eyeballs moving so far under the lids
Does she not see us when she does that? 
Are we gone for a millisecond?
Or Do we not see her for her?
Do we just see who he is
More pronounced? 

What Do I Think About Race?

What Do I Think About Race?
by Tilok Adnan

If people are people,
Animals are Animals.
Nature is Nature,
Colors can't be the same?
Colors don't have species
But everyone has a favorite
And I can't decide between two
I like green and black
The juxtaposition is amazing
You can get nuclear or nature
Depending on what comes first
If those colors had life
They would tell you that
It's not a race to see who is better
They would understand that more
green and less black signals
nature, growth, and harmony
But they might talk and say,
   
    Bring our friends,
    Red, Orange, and Yellow,
    All flora - make it a garden.

How stupid.
Colors can't talk.
We do. We associate
Them to things we know
Are too familiar to us.
I hate the color red.
Red will signal danger.
Red will seek attention.
Red is a pompous brat.
If people had red skin color
I would sure as hell consider
them dangerous, right?
I would hate them, right?
Right? Right? RIGHT?
But people are ... PEOPLE.
They shouldn't be hated
If they are red, or blue, or green.
People are not their colors.

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by Tilok Adnan


Who are you,
    who promises my perilous voyage
    unto a paradise from the
    flesh to the soul
    to the fiery seas and then
    to lands of fruit bearing trees?

Will I meet you there,
    there in the mirth of men
    and women and children
    where we will all be children
    unknown to each other and
    I might ask, "where is my father?"?