THE SAINT

Februarys, Ogres that transform every four turns. 
They beg to be chosen by the counts of times.
But when their wish is done,
Their good shadow is gone.
Those months that led them to the ladder,
They would maltreat and make them weaker.
February though the tiniest among the counts in time,
Yet mounts up wings of the devil’s fall 
With all mind and valor to grow tall.

A February I knew and examined with great view;
 His ways and acts I have decided to review
So that months and days will no longer bear its curse. 
Like a saint, it comes begging to achieve its course, 
Just to have limited days as breeds:
For four years, it says, dead are your needs
But a year anon, we fought for feeds.

Two years before January breaks its last egg
Before the thirty-first day releases its peg
It speaks of goodness and solidity
But it quakes all months’ personality.

February shines with colours of deceit,
With words of mouth they cannot forfeit:
These blur Nov-Jan’s eyes to share of winter’s tear;
And when February’s aspiration appears clear,
It gets some weeks which it breastfeeds with blades of sour.
While some follow him also due to peanuts’ tour.
It does make the difference, that which is a blood pour:
Massacres the first two that peeps and with no eyes of mercy to zoom,
Into the tiger’s cage, February sends them to their hour of doom.

‘Mar-Apr, how lovely you boomed
How beautiful your spring bloomed.
Must May be slaughtered to make the other
Seven altar months in fear surrender
To your merciless bloody massacre?
The months it struck, their home too small a place
The surfeit of power was sure its case?’

It rushes for May and pounces on it like a wild cat,
Tearing it to pieces and upon its dear face it spat
Now that May is gone, how will June to December reign?
February causes a great harvest of sorrow and pain
Surely, not with doubt, February has gone really insane.

He leaves the corpse and walks away
To take May’s place, for that its way.
Other months gather to mourn for May,
Apr-Mar are buried in the earth; 
All three months die a throbbing death.
May a hero of the red-eyed days, the most handsome
And the freshest of all months in a solitary sum;
The saviour of the struggling bloods
And the chief of the voicing swords,
Without pity, without respect is slain by the most trusted one.
Gravestones are made at their graves; as tributes to lives that lives on.

February again makes a cock-a-doodle-doo to its deed,
And walks towards May’s grave to water its undone seed.
Master of disaster! Your slaughter not full a smile
Your malign coups not enough a pile?
Or the blood of April to the very last
And those unblemished personages you cast
Are not okay for a tailless pain? 
Not enough wine for you to wine
Or enough food for you to dine?
The force from the dark not enough to reign?

February again digs the grave of the musketeers
And cause their monuments to be a scene of tears
Their bodies he takes to lay in an evil forest,
Where no soul or ghost finds impeccable peace or rest
‘Stop, you wicked soul from hell!’ 
The sun, the crop, and oil yell
‘Their clays not meant for such a paltry place’.
That field filled with February’s fierce folks
That place clammed with foul and scary pokes.
But no day or month can stop such a case,
For February now has the power to run the race.

February again prepares for a hunt,
Picks up a spear that kills with no count:
And when it kills chaste days, justice is lost in court
Just like Yank, in a story’s scene had deeply thought
In such places what one finds are innocent’s fault.
Its heart is controlled by some unseen god-fathers;
They are Februaries too, both of akin bird feathers. 
As one without a genuine call,
They chain them down in a pitfall,
And each day, seek to rule them all.

He goes into January’s palace
To make him pay and then to take his place.
January sees him approach but never moves to fight back
He sees when February, the evil month give it a vast crack
Though he has the strength to repay,
But in a bid to make peace stay,
He waits to receive modesty’s piety,
So he bears February’s act of cruelty.
February seeing the throne was lastly its
Sojourns and leaves January semi-dead:
But to be certain of great pain increase, 
January is thrown in a lion’s bed.
But to all, a great wow, a deed came forth;
A thing which no mind had thought,
A scene that no sense had caught:
Since God, with authority so huge doesn’t watch
The innocent in pain without drawing a sketch.
Unto His mercy wings, He would make them clutch
For never have I seen the righteous beg for bread
For In the Mosaic so He had rightly said.

January escapes from the den, though its body torn 
He cries out to heaven like a blast of thundering horn.
When power maneuvers; danger precedes
With January’s clout February proceeds.
Deeds are deeds, tick tocks not charms of it
Whether its north or west, south or east,
Deeds will surely gush out of its asylum.
Not long its eyes becomes full of evil’s storm.
He begins to advance more in his sinful manner:
February, too stuck with January’s power
Commands moments to bend and years to bow
This forces days and weeks to begin to kowtow
In front of him, the man of terrors
Whose conducts where so full of errors.

Then a day comes that its deeds is chuckled by death’s sickle;
Though still fresh, for its face bares no blemish nor wrinkle
It clacks in pain, gasps for breath and that is all.

No one is left to bury it, not even in the evil forest
Nor entomb its iniquitous body in the soil that is wobbliest,
For the lands reject him 
And maggots harbor him 
All those friends of it who push it to death
And buoy it up to pleat such gory wealth
To its bottomless purse, 
All sizzle on its corpse. 
Then a curse, they give it as parting gift.
That is how life seals February’s rift:
So its end comes as rapid as its start;
Tomfoolery is shown its rightful part.

Due to his pride and deviled heart, he failed the ruling key:
To rule well is to rule with a heart full of guarantee
To rule and die is to rule with a heart that cannot see;
Crying ‘NO!’ To works that give people their rewards and fee.
A true ruler owns a hand that cannot kill,
Withered purses and pockets but cannot steal.
A ruler, who both in speech and in feats is February’s caste,
And who in mind feels fair dealing is a pathetic last
Will at close be dead to breathe; a life of no trumpet blast:
Ending up in shame like February’s future and doleful past.


 Writer’s note: An allegorical poem about the nature of ‘everywhere’ politics….

Februarys in the poem represents bad government officials and politicians who organize rallies and campaign every four years, which is equivalent to the occurrence of a leap year. After winning the people’s hearts (months, weeks, days) and are voted into offices, they become beings who terrorize the people, forgetting that the mouth that bites the hand that feeds it will go hungry for a deal of days.