POETRY BY HARJIT SINGH SAGOO

Harjit Singh Sagoo is a British multi-genre writer, illustrator, and researcher of reality-based combat. He has been published in Martial Arts Illustrated (UK), Black Belt Magazine (USA), Blitz (Australia), Asana International Yoga Journal (India), Samurai Bushido (Italy), Kung Fu Era (Singapore), Iran Daily (Iran), El Budoka 2.0 (Spain) and Boevie Iskusstva (Ukraine). Other publications include Totally Tae Kwon Do, Life After Hate, Faith Initiative, Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine, and The Horror Zine (both online and in print, 2013). He has also done illustrations which have appeared in Animal Voice and robertenglund.com (Harjit was a winner of a Greetings Cards competition and his card was published and sold through the official website of actor Robert Englund).

His published books include, A Crash Course in Surviving Gangsters, Serial Killers, Contract Killers and Terrorists (2015), The Lost Warfare of India: An Illustrated Guide (2016), co-authored with historian, researcher and YouTuber, Antony Cummins, and Shastra Vidya: The Ancient Indian Martial Art of the Hindu Kshatriyas (2017).

Harjit is also the founder of the Indian Martial Arts Research Group (IMARG). The primary objective of IMARG is to spread awareness of traditional and modern Indian martial arts and culture through literature and videos.

WTH’S GOING ON?

I sit at my home desk, tapping away at my PC,
I look at my smartwatch, the time nears A.M. 3.

I find the early hours the perfect time to write,
Enables me to conjure up works that read right.

Struggling snores from the next room, it’s Ben,
Sigh! The sofa’s my flatmate’s bed once again.

TV’s left on, I think it’s Netflix or Prime,
Waste of elec, he does this all the time.

From outside—approaching footsteps!—tap, tap!
Someone’s coming! Racing towards the flat!

I need to check this out, let me grab my baton,
I look through the peephole to see what’s going on.

It can’t be! It’s Ben my flatmate! WTH?
I pull open the door, kissed by a sulfuric smell.

With hands held up high, he sprints towards me,
Yellow rubber gloves on each hand I see.

He warningly waves both arms side to side,
His face all pale and ghoulishly terrified!

Ben flies past me like a Concorde jet,
I’m freaking out, but know nothing yet.

I look into the front garden; nothing but darkness,
But then why was Ben fleeing with such harshness?

And why the gloves? Why was he even outside?
Why the stunned look? Where did he now hide?

And wait a moment! If he’s just come inside now, then…
Who the heck was that snoring inside if not Ben?

What the hell’s going on? Frozen is my thinking,
I do not want to step anywhere outside or further in!

MARVON’S JERK

Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually in hell,
You see, back in the 90s, I was in a canal.

My best friend Marvon and I rode our bikes there,
An 8-year-old me looked into the water with a stare.

Then all of a sudden, Marvon pushed me firmly,
Deep into the murky waters I found myself to be.

My body went down, there was cold and muck,
After a moment, my little body then sprung up.

I floated forth with the steady current and wind,
Panic took over as I didn’t know how to swim.

Marvon was crying and yelling apologetically,
And I was crying and yelling for help desperately.

Saw some garbage bags on the edge, my only hope,
My plan was to latch onto those bags so as to cope.

My hopes manifested! My body neared them,
I grabbed onto the bags and climbed out then.

Marvon hugged me and told me not to tell,
I agreed, but clothes were soaked and had a smell.

I rang my musical doorbell and my mother came,
The door opened and I walked past without shame.

Into the upstairs bathroom I went and bathed,
Shaking with fear that I was nearly graved.

This was long ago, a memory 30+ years old,
I clearly remember the fear, darkness and cold.

Though, I look at the world and see just pain;
Doesn’t matter who’s in power, justice gets slain. 

Increasing crime rates, constant financial crises,
Unjust wars, all types of hatred, food shortages.

Sometimes I wonder—what if I actually died that day?
What if I actually never left the waters to live and play?

I was only 8, but guilty of many insect genocides,
Perhaps for those sins, I went down a hell slide?

Am I trapped in hellish replica of God’s work?
Would I be in a better world if it weren’t for Marvon’s jerk?

WHERE ARE WE?

Is our world a sphere; a chance-created spinning ball?
Or God-created, flat, stationary, domed with tall ice walls?

Or is our world hollow, with beings outside and inside?
Or is it solid, all over which all living creatures reside?

Is there a deep space, whose entire size is impossible to fathom?
Or is Earth the only physical world around which exists heaven?

Is NASA’s deep space and planet images legit or just CGI?
Are they covering up the truth with articulate lies?

What if everything’s just a computer simulation we’re living in?
Or we’re just highly-advanced bacterial growth in a giant’s bin?