VALENTINE’S VALLEY

This poem is dedicated to the bravehearts who were martyred this very day in 2019.

Here is a silence in these valleys now,
For the shock and pain have passed.
Some screams of agony still linger though,
As the blood dries slowly across the snow.

A day this one of love and loss,
Of blood, gore, chocolate and candy floss.
To beating hearts a romantic pantomime.
To bravehearts that stopped,a bloody valentine.

All the hatred of those decades past,
Came ripping through the shockwave’s blast.
Shredding both steel and skin alike,
Leaving man and metal a mangled mass.

Another slaughter has come to pass,
Another brick in a growing wall of hate,
Another tragedy that is sure to last,
Another blow to this already sorry state.

A paradox this valley of beauty and beast,
Of sorrow and joy, of funeral and feast.
Nature in glory most rare to behold,
Man in his most primal, cruel and cold.

Here vengeance flies high on wings of retribution,
Death rides hard on the steed of suspicion,
Thick is the air wth betrayal and fear,
The shadow of doubt always lurks near.

Here valour is martyr’d at the altar of duty,
The scythe of suicide harvests young beauty.
Cunning slavemasters fill minds with untruths,
A mocktail of madness for gullible youth.

Where is the end to this parade of destruction?
This charade of life, these cruel parodies.
Can the machine of fate be stopped by intention?
Or simply grind away till it runs out of bodies.

Dr. Ravin Chengappa, 15th February 2019, Mysore. From his collection of poems titled – THE LEAVES OF THE POET TREE.