Key to the Kingdom

KEY OF THE KINGDOMtc "KEY OF THE KINGDOM"
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R. R. Menon

Here is the key to the kingdom come
where kingship is a denial’s outcome
from the felt present’s familiar hum.
Hence it so happens that the takers
are fewer, even these rear ‘undertakers’
acquire a funereal overtone, and a glow
other-worldly with worldly hunger in tow.

With the present therefore out of step
are most of us, because the road map
of how to have the cake and not eat it,
differs widely from sacred wit to wit
of a revered messiah turning up,
while storms go on brewing in our tea-cup.
Refuse the facts that stare you in the face
to regale the future with denial’s pace?
Religions work out methods to have
the best of both worlds in earth’s cave.
Instant remedies for a life of sin
are easy ways to secure a win
with least effort, with life after death
fulfilling each desire in the thought’s breath.

When principles die, their ghosts reach out
with vengeful hands for a double harvest
of the sinner and the sinned against
in a dare-devil democracy’s power-thirst.
Reasons picked from the decaying hay-stalk
of recorded history do fortify the talk
that buries the facts, and them exhumes
to settle down with individual resumes.
The rebel also revels in rakish dreams
to feel the present’s pain-soaked screams.
Between the world born and the one yet unborn,
man finds the key to a kingdom all his own