The Burning Rose -By Dibyasree Nandy

The orange sun disappears behind the cloudy fog, and the clock tower rings;

Purple mist engulfs nobility and the poor alike, sins it brings;

Drizzle accompanying, the daisy sleeps upon a rug of charred roses;

The night is cold, they gaze outside the window, and the glass pane freezes.

As the haze and the rain intertwine; under the red moon, the devils march forth;

Guarding the weak, the white angels eliminate the aristocracy’s worth;

The wealthy pirouette at the masquerade ball;

Callous, they pour crimson liquid on the floor, ignoring the white petals that fall.

The gloved hand of a red devil picks up the white daisy doused; a red rose born;

In the palm of the white angel, blood is soaked, divine face forlorn;

Torture of the lower class continues; furious, the rose burns;

The daisy, never to return, is buried under the old graveyard ferns.

Pronounced canines of a nobleman, wails of the scullery maids;

Injustice resonates throughout the eventide’s glades;

His eyes smoulder like flora scarlet; thirsty knives, rapiers and rifles at his beck and call;

Punishment is fiery, harsh, and diabolic; angels dance on piles of corpses tall.

Criminals of thorny chivalry, to the court they cannot be brought;

Policemen dash along the streets, with the heavenly demons they fought;

Once it begins, the blazes of rage, contagious, hosepipes cannot stop;

Slum-dwellers innards, ravaged by the uppers…. Their crimes; can the nation mop?

Tales of patriots, painters of intrinsic funerals;

A single flower, progenitor of a city of ashes, ceasing the squalls;

He strides towards the vermillion lunar rays, back straight;

Smiling kind and gentle, the rose’s incoming demise, he fires a bullet at his own head.