Axis & Allies - damowords

First Landing
Night nestled midst the vast financial core
Of the globe’s most massive democracy
Where twenty seven million or more
Live in a state of guarded apathy;
The terror threat
For Mumbaikers distinct
But far too fast to fret their lives in living link’d.
Three old men watched the rubber craft
Slip into their slummy quay
Ten kempt lads leapt ashore & laugh’d
Shaking off the liquid sea
An old man thought this rather daft
& ask’d who could they be
”Mind your business,” spoke a lad in blue
Not in Mharati but in deep Urdu…
They clasp’d each others shoulder‐blades
& there did pray awile
Ten young, outrageous renegades
Into five pairs now file
& flag down five black hackney cabs to fly the final mile.
Mumbai
20.30
A Last Supper
Full unaware he bore Death’s messengers,
Their shifty ambience so strange & cold
Mohammed dropp’d off his young passengers
Outside the bustling Café Leopold;
A famous place
Racing with western dress
Whose smiling, happy face would soon be bloody mess.
At first a hand grenade goes off
In momentary stunning
Unpitying the gunmen scoff
At cowering & running
Aiming their train’d kaleshnikov
At them all down‐gunning –
If you were eating in this place that night
A bullet would have been your only bite!
The gunmen smugly stroll’d outside
Into an empty street
The shutters slide as all folks hide
& fleet are fleeing feet
As two young Muslims move along these murders to repeat.
Colaba
21.35