The Lampshade Writer

The rivers ran red, not with blood but with data—   Leaked, stolen, corrupted, and sold.   An ocean of truth turned toxic with secrets,   A digital tide where the powerful hold.   Frogs leapt from screens in relentless invasion,   Endless ads, distractions, and noise.   They nestled in minds, in thoughts, in decisions,   Croaking commands with an artificial voice.   The gnats and the flies were the bots and the trolls,   Swarming with rumours, with hate they would sting.   A plague of deception, of viral contagion,   Turning truth into dust on the wings that they bring.   The cattle lay dying—our labour, our wealth,   Bled dry by the greedy elite.   Markets crash, empires fall,   Yet they feast while we starve in the heat.   Boils and sores break out on the masses,   Not on the skin, but deep in the mind.   A ...

The mosques stood tall, their minarets piercing the heavens,   but the call to prayer could not silence the wails of the dying.   The synagogues, with their sacred scrolls, trembled in candlelight,   yet not even the Torah could script salvation in ink divine.   The saints knelt in cathedrals, their rosaries clutched like lifelines,   but beads of prayer unraveled, spilling into the dust.   The imams whispered the names of the merciful,   but mercy turned its face away.   And the children—oh, the children!   Not even their innocence was a sanctuary,   for the plague did not pause at their laughter,   nor did it bow before the softness of their skin.   They fell like autumn leaves, breath stolen mid-giggle,   cradled by the cold arms of the night.   Blood smeared the doorposts, a desperate cry for clemency,   but the wind carried no angel o...