Writer & Affiliation · लेखक परिचय
Michael Roque
Corresponding writer Independent Writer, Tel Aviv, Israel
Published Work · प्रकाशित रचना
The credits rolled
on a predictable “happily ever after” note.
Bambi, triumphant, stood with his dad,
seven dwarfs chased the Evil Queen
off the mountain’s ledge
and a generation of kids
were tucked into a million little racecar beds.
A generation adrift in dreams,
snoozed through their fairytales
flattened by the collapsed walls
of a caved-in 20th century,
AWOKE to mounting debts.
AWOKE on sidewalks.
AWOKE to the reality
that this movie was never Disney,
but just a handful of happy little scenes
in a bizarre film by Fellini.
ACTION!
Caught in a rifle’s scope,
Bambi and Faline are butchered in a human home.
A divorced drunk,
sleeping Snow White is sneakily felt up
by the dwarfs
she so dearly trusts.
And the film—
rolls—
on.
Writer & Affiliation · लेखक परिचय
Michael Roque
Corresponding writer Independent Writer, Tel Aviv, Israel
Published Work · प्रकाशित रचना
BANG!
A gun blast—
a spray of brain matter
mere hours away
rose emotions
with the hot air balloons
rising over Cappadocia’s suddenly stained sky.
This just in!
Kurdish teen—
The brains she blew out
through the back of her skull
to avoid capture in Kobani,
one country south of us in a Syrian civil war.
Bang!
Heroism
formed in a 25-year-old mind
while Southbound train whistles screeched in our ears—
or a sole rifle shot.
I begged, tried to convince—
Tommaso, wasn’t in.
Visualized glory
onboard an Istanbul-bound bus—
my unwritten myth was as dead and distant as Ceylan Ozalp—
Her courage,
the shattered dream of my own
both pierced upon Cappadocia’s spiraling spires.
bang!
Writer & Affiliation · लेखक परिचय
Michael Roque
Corresponding writer Independent Writer, Tel Aviv, Israel
Published Work · प्रकाशित रचना
All I ever wanted to be—
was a chicken.
An egg
hatching at my own pace,
gluttons watch,
plotting to cook me into a snack
they can season to satisfy
their own taste.
Two sets of hands,
four rows of teeth—
opposite appetites.
One wants me boiled in scalding water
till my soft center hardens.
One wants me scrambled
on a sizzling skillet.
Both
aim to crack open my shell
before I can hatch—
into myself.
