Factory of discontent

How many times
Will I find myself lost like this
In a dream bordering on a nightmare.
This is not inside my factory
Which manufactures discontent
In three shifts
This is a five-star hospital
Where I am looking
For the exit
I do not trust anyone to ask
For fear of being misled
Then wander into a wedding hall,
(Now, hospitals are all multi-purpose),
Where a provocative politician
is calling an icon
Of the rival camp
The choicest names
Hoping to polarise votes
For the next election
The audience greets
His hate speech
With unrestrained glee
Among the crowd
I see the neighbour
Who is in hiding
After being accused
Of eating prohibited meat
By cow protectors
Who also double as moral police
What better place to be underground
Than in a dream, where a hospital
Is also a mall, a restaurant, a cinema
A wedding hall where speakers
Instead of blessing newlyweds
Curse their opponents
And their progeny
The absconding enemy of the cows
Points the way out to me
With sad, bovine eyes.

Chronic

Is there anything
More chronic than life
A relapse there's no way to stop
A relentless waking to
From a storm-tossed sleeplessness
That comes from the anomalies
Of the wakefulness
When the fires have to be fed
Again and again.
Those invested in the unseen
Offer an array of remedies
That guarantee no cures
Only fewer births
Before one can be freed
Of the disease of life.

Encroachment

Under the rubble
A heap of memories
A doll with a name
She could not retrieve
The shaft of sunlight
Swimming with dust
Intruding at day
The moonbeam at night
Dancing in with a dream
It was here her little sister
Woke up dead
Showed her first
That life could end too soon
Just like this
Their home brought down
As if they didn't matter
One way or the other