Biswarup Darshan

My provocation,
my mercenary.
It was I
who placed the gun in his hand.
 
And when the bodies fell,
my voice too rose in protest.
Even morality, justice,
and ethics marched in my parade—
not family, not kin,
only the lie that truth always wins.
 
I raised the banner of victory
over a mountain of corpses,
my words of peace
etched into history,
immovable, unchallenged.
 
I built the martyr’s altar—
and there, I swore oaths
for punishment of the killers.
Yet the killers—
were mine.
 
I drafted the war’s archive,
through the eyes of a vulture.
I caged betrayal
and sold it as faith.
 
Before the camera,
I stood in front of the grieving families.
The world looked upon me—
open-mouthed,
terrified,
awed by my triumph.
 
I am the artist
I draw the beauty of death—
eternal, inevitable.
I carve it to be felt,
to be sold, to be crowned with fame.
I am the laureate.
I know the truth of life:
that even art must drink from veins.
And still,
I need human blood
to keep my art alive.
 
I am labor,
I am the horse of the sacrifice,
I am the reflection of the earth
that gazes at itself.
 
And still—
I have never looked in the mirror
And see myself!