Poems by
Anjali Venugopal

Decadence

a poem by Anjali Venugopal

As mothers abort and abandon fruits of her own womb
and fathers fight stress and sugar and make way to an early tomb.
As hemlines rise and necklines plunge and finally meet
and modesty and marriage is forgotten in promiscuous heat.
As sense and sensibility are the past
and vanity and vulgarity the future’s repast.
As greed and gluttony intoxicates the mind
and leaves idealism and intellect far behind.
As we mangle and maraud the earth that feeds
and rape her fertility with waste and weeds.
As lust and lechery rides the back of modernity
and desecrate and devastate an institution called matrimony.
As rape and rancour are one’s ways to fame
and deceit and debauchery all part of the game.
As the very roots of our culture rot and reek,
we shall give birth to a dead and decaying social streak.