The paths to home

All paths lead home,

And you reach on a somber dusk morrow,

To find that the garbage smell is now perfumed,

The dark alleys are now with rude advertisements of hope,

The silent corners now choke with fumes from SUVs and their desperate honking ruckus,

The broken windows of a forgotten home, is now a mall with anonymous black glass panes.

All just a moment away from the truth,

Clinging on, tight-fisted, red-eyed, lest dreams takeover

And you see the fecund fake rumble and rubbish,

In crass giggles and matchbox homes,

Cenotaphs for a drugged nation.

All hope spun from trauma,

Of generations upon generations,

Caste, creed, skin color, religion,

Thoughtless rage, and mindless veneration.

All vanity, a patented hubris,

3D holograms of smiling bearded men,

Posed and poised upon a pedestal, all too high,

For those of mere commonsense to question.

All roads lead away,

A journey through forsaken lanes,

Where myths of muscle and grit,

Grime and slime, farce phases of progress,

Peel away like hastily laid tar,

Sophisticated pancake for the real man,

Lest you think everything is a hologram.

All homes smell of old ancestors,

You just have to live long enough.

Layers of roads upon lakes and towns,

How far deep do you want to dig?

Maybe to strike water,

Or oil,

Or maybe an effigy,

                                Of an old truth,

Which still hasn't been burnt at a stake.