Black Peter

Black Peter

Peter for god-knows-what was proud,

Never got along well with the innocuous crowd,

Was rude with everyone including his boss,

His team thought his mind was pretty little cross.

When you spoke with him he went all so tan,

He'd whisper with a few, as if crafting a plan,

He wrote his senseless lines and thought of them as poems,

Then texted his colleagues to read; only to those he thought were friends.

The team and the boss got their life of a chance,

To uproot this Peter with his obnoxious stance.

A lady in the team made a strong written complaint

A text sent at night? O this is harassment!

But wait! This wasn't just enough,

Peter also performed way below his peers.

Faults here and there, said the trusted reviewer.

Now he’d be out for sure, it's clear without a bluff.

The bad apple's out, the triumphant team was glad,

Good riddance from the con that made them always sad,

With him in the team no one was ever safe,

But Peter per the doctor was myopic and deaf.

But listen to this my friends! Peter says, victims are always cruel,

That he's still a victor who'd survive in the hell.

He worries on the Peter who'd appear next on stage,

The play is waiting there to replay without a change!


I am glad I wrote this. The poem tries to see how group judgement can sometimes go wrong. We seem to depend too much on the machinery called 'everybody' but at times it can be cruel and even wrong! A group of people, in victim mode, inflicting inexplicable pain on one individual is no less than a gang rape or a terror attack. All of this happens in the name of justice.... if you asked those men who are gunning down innocent people, as to why they are doing what they are doing, they'd have something to say, so where is the difference?

10 January 2015