Meritocratic Jury

Conspiracy of the galaxy
Coming together of forces
To offer them higher birth
infinite inborn meritocracy…

Saswat Pattanayak 10/31/15 Saswat Pattanayak 10/31/15

Modified

Knock knock
Who’s there?
Your conscience
My conscience who?

Saswat Pattanayak 9/30/15 Saswat Pattanayak 9/30/15

Silent Majority

First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Pakistani.

Saswat Pattanayak 11/28/14 Saswat Pattanayak 11/28/14

No Thanks(giving)

Kill the dissenters
Land of freedoms
Celebrate survivors
Build more prisons

Saswat Pattanayak 5/1/13 Saswat Pattanayak 5/1/13

Socialist Realism

To consume the books that tell the lies,
Or to drop out of institutional favors.
Between emerging heroes or misfits –
Have the choice to swear patriotism

Saswat Pattanayak 4/30/13 Saswat Pattanayak 4/30/13

Sleeping Child

…and she will nod her head,
her empty slate of a mind
That will be overwritten with lies after
Lies after lies about who is a terrorist
And who is a decent human being.

Saswat Pattanayak 12/31/08 Saswat Pattanayak 12/31/08

The Plan

Have we planned enough for the year ahead?
The terrorizing wars, conflicts, military bloodshed
Zionist lobbies, hawkish Hindus, Islamic fanatics
Have we planned enough to defeat Christian clerics?

Saswat Pattanayak 2/1/05 Saswat Pattanayak 2/1/05

I am not a South Asian

They can call me at will, a different race and a different ethnicity
But can hardly ever separate me from my shared similar history

Select Verses

Translations

Annual Poems

Haikus

Saswat Pattanayak, Ph.D.