Sanjay Prasad, what a searing cut into in this poem. The emotion in your poem I've seen in the eyes of homeless men dying of AIDS. People are fond of saying you cannot look at someone and see the AIDS virus. If you have eyes you can see it clearly. If someone is dying from complications from it it has a distinct distortion to it I cannot describe. How you captured it with skill is impressive, little brother. - Gregory E. Woods, Dawn Wolf  Keeper of Stories

NO ONE CRIES – A POEM ON AIDS AWARENESS

Deep slumber, laid down below the stones,

Epitaph to remember for a cause unknown,

Crossed questions from near and dear,

No man woman or child left behind,

Birthday marked the doom alone,

No one cries or will ever remember.

Silent words that were pronounced,

Candle lit in the house and sanatorium around,

care and cause had no meaning,

Sought to hatred crime and poverty,

Demanding a normal life to live,

No one cries or will ever remember.

Standing at the cross roads with no future,

Calling the name of God in the hour of distress,

Satisfaction and dreams that were never fulfilled,

Crossed the thin line of relationship for no reason,

Covered in shame the society served,

No one cries or will ever remember.

The four letter words stays distinguished,

Tired and Torn with no place to go,

Cried in mother's lap but to be disowned,

Epidemic turned into Pandemic so soon,

Give us a hand for millions have to live,

Secure our lives is all that we can pray,

No one cries or will ever remember....

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © Sanjay Prasad 2010

RAPE: girl raped by school mates in moving car

 “Here the girl is not a victim but equally responsible for what ever that has happened she had mutually agreed to have sex with her boyfriend and his friends as she was caught in a compromising position with the boy friend, she is trying to save the guy and lodged complaint against other guys bit has not mentioned the fourth guy which is sickening, she has not given the whole story the media without getting the details has published it and has not acted with responsibility, the girl and her boy friend should be remanded to the police custody as well.” - Sanjay Prasad

“Regardless of the girl’s guilt or innocence she had sex with more than one boy in a closed space. As foul as that is to us, and our sense of good, and justice we are not paying attention to the truth, the act, the boys, and the practice they learned: gang rape. Where I am in the world, in the Washington DC area, people call it ‘running a train on a girl’.

A man like me asks, “How in the hell do you have sex with a woman others have just had, and still others are waiting to have sex with as other’s watch?”


In the last year, I was in jail working with teenage inmates. There was a funny, good-looking Black kid bragging about his sexual skills with women. He talked on and on to the amusement of his audience until I got sick of it, and told him to sit his narrow behind down. I laid my blanket on the floor motioning for them to sit. I poured my story stones on the blanket, and began to share my father’s teachings to me at their tender ages of 14 and 15.


My father stood in front of me his hands extended palms up and asked me a question that altered the shape of my life.


“On the one hand I could teach you how to be a man. On the other I could teach you how to be a playboy.”


I remember bristling with excitement touching his right hand because, more than anything, I wanted to be like Daddy: a man.


“Good,” he said, “what I’m going to teach you is applicable to both. A playboy is the lowest common denominator of a man.”

 

That boy, the funny cat, plopped down on the hard floor resting his arms on my blanket, and lapsed into a solemn silence listening to my teachings about sex, sexual energies, Punany, and women. At the end of the teaching circle two boys pulled me to the side, and shared a horrifying story. They had a lot of questions about women and marriages they realized through my stories they couldn’t have because, as they explained, men during their elementary, and junior high school years taught them how to ‘run a train on a woman’!!!! Sparing you the details I was dumbfounded, and grieving in respectful silence listening to their long story, and their detailed questioning of my teachings about sex, and women.

There is a cultural support for this behavior. It is a behavioral pattern intimate with sports, crime, and war. It is so prevalent around the world that it goes without public discourse because we are trained by religion, and culture to minimize the worlds of thought, and yearnings evil creates in a righteous heart. The depth of this mindset is menacing, and full of powers persuading, and intimidating millions, for all of the wrong reasons, to look away. How do we protect our daughters, and sons from this belief system? How do we release the hold of religious doctrine, and dogma that feeds and supports this terror? How do we undo the story millions of men learn and internalize as a rite-of-passage, and accept as a norm?


- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

SANJAY PRASAD, poet & author My Last Prayers

photo: Snake on flower by Sanjay Prasad

Sanjay Prasad lives in Kolkata, India. At present working in a Software company. Writing is imbibed in him from early childhood and he writes whatever attracts him. He is associated with spreading awareness in the issues related to Climate Change, Environment, Endangered species, AIDS, Peace, Terrorism, Bad governance, Corruption, Atrocities on women, Child abuse, Immoral human trafficking and Poverty.

http://www.unibook.com/en/SANJAY-PRASAD/My-Last-Prayers

"Sanjay sent me a link to his publication I would like to share with you.  There is a great power in poetry that takes the simple into the intangible realms of knowing, care, understanding the Mysteries of Being, and becoming." -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Sanjay Prasad, poet & author