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Different Truths presents The Peace Anthology – People against Genocide: Stop Chemical War. Save Humanity! It features 56 poets, with as many poems, from various parts of the world. These responsive, Social Journalist-Poets (a term unique to this Global Participatory Social Journalism Platform), have come together, to express their solidarity against the use of Chemical War in Syria. An exclusive initiative of Different Truths, headed by two well-known Anthology Editors, Michele Baron and Roula Pollard. We intend to carry forward this Humanitarian Mission forward, together with you all and others, who believe in this cause.
Editorials from the Anthology Editors and the Editor-in-Chief
Edit One
For eons, we have courted one another, in a pas de deux of nations, cultures, religions — a marriage of disparate and shared hopes and dreams, which we call civilization. We’ve tried, against all odds, to protect the fragile balance of individuality, while nurturing our aspirations to become something … greater — beyond the fear of losing self, reaching towards a freedom of recognition, tolerance, trust.
Instead, our global society finds itself, again, and still, in the midst of a struggle for ascendancy, for gain without fear of accountability, for power without fear of reprisal.
Always, it is our families at home, and our families-in-spirit, across this Earth we share, who suffer: our mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, friends — and all of Nature herself.
We struggle in the face of bereavement; we cry for peace beneath rivers of blood; we seek to find a universality of meaning which would enable us to communicate, to repair that humanity which inhuman violence has ripped asunder.
The genocide of Adolf Hitler, the horrors of Pol Pot’s “cleansing,” the massacres in Rwanda, the gassing, bombing, tortures and disappearances in Syria — bury us all beneath the ghosts of innumerable villified “others.” Are we to remain lost beneath the intolerable weight of the atrocities marring so much of our history?
Our future is drowning in the tears of terrified children, distraught parents, the elderly, whose world has imploded, leaving them without a country, without family, without hope.
The urgency of this time, the importance of raising each voice to prevent these monstrous crimes against humanity cannot be overemphasised.
In this anthology, each poet adds their words to a resounding refutation of the deadly shadow of genocide. In these pages, each poem becomes a beacon of reason, a light of truth and hope.
Let us follow the light home, to peace.
Michele Baron,
Anthology Editor
May 14, 2017
Edit Two
Since antiquity poets have always been against war. Aristophanes, play, “Peace” performed in 421 BC is one of the greatest witnesses against war. Aristophanes was the global media of his time.
What do poets, writers, artists, broadcasters, media men, politicians, report today about war?
How does the media influence public opinion? What do poets, the “unofficial legislators”, according to the English poet P.B. Shelley write, when war and famine threaten to turn the world upside down?
How do poets protest against war today? What do they hear and see on their televisions about the war?
Are they de-sensitised when they hear of the number of victims in the Syrian war? Are the poets of our global world de-sensitised when they hear that some 4,000,000 refugees have fled from the war in Syria?
Does the actual number of victims have any meaning to the global viewer? What do people think about the environmental consequences of the Syrian war?
What do poets think when they hear about chemical warfare? Do poets know how quickly the chemical gas Sarin can kill?
Whatever questions are asked about the Syrian war, one thing is certain.
Poets the world over are against war and think only of Peace.
Stop Genocide. Stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Building Peace is a serious project. Through our poetry we create peace.
It is time for Peace.
This anthology represents the voices of the poets the world over, writing for Peace in our world.
Roula Pollard,
Anthology Editor
May 14, 2017
Edit Three
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone –
Man has created death.
~ Death, WB Yeats
How true is WB Yeats! The history of civilisation is a continuous account of warfare, treachery, self-interests, fanaticisms, Holy Wars, colonial expansions, freedom movements, terrorism. It is the history of mass murders and countless deaths.
The theatre of war has changed from a battlefield, where opposing armies clashed, limiting the loss of lives and limbs within its confines, to entire nations that became battlefields. Women, children, and elders always become targets of any clash.
Large scale chemical warfare was recorded during World War II, the greatest genocide in human history. It saw the emergence of gas chambers. It also witnessed the droppings of two Atom Bombs, which had names like ‘Little Boy’ (Hiroshima, Aug 6, 1945) and ‘Fat Man’ (Nagasaki, Aug 9, 1945). To this day, the effects of ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ are palpable.
Imagine such funny adorable names for the two A-Bombs! These are fun games for the death merchants.
The chemical war in Syria is the continuance of the legacies of the ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’. That’s the reason we chose the word ‘Genocide’. The history of mass murders and that of death is unending.
Different Truths, since its inception 17 months back, is alive to humanitarian causes. We are grateful to poet-song writer-artist Michele Baron (USA/Kyrgyzstan) and Roula Pollard (Athens, Greece). They graciously agreed to be the Anthology Editors. We thank Roula for advocating for the Anthology in various poetry groups. Michele edited 30 poems in this Anthology (Nos: 1 to 11, 22 to 38, and 54-55), while Roula edited 25 poems (Nos: 12 to 21 and 39-53).
Special mention has to be made of Michele. She allowed us to feature her painting of her video of a live concert performance, “How Beautiful are the Feet.” It is a painting she did, based on a photo of a child being carried from a bombing site. It is dedicated to those who endure violence and tragedy, and those who search for peace. Here’s the video:
The response to our prompt for The Anthology on Peace, within a short time, was overwhelming. Thanks are due to the fifty-five poets from various parts of the world for as many poems, in solidarity against the Chemical War in Syria.
Poets have been the voice of the people in times of distress and crisis. This explains the word ‘People’ against Genocide. Different Truths (DT) also joins hands with World Poetry Festival (WFP), in furthering the cause of Humanitarianism and Peace.
At the end of the anthology, there is a Humanitarian Appeal, signed jointly by our Managing Editor, Anumita Chatterjee Roy (DT) and Luz María López (WFP). All poets and readers of the Anthology may please sign for petitioning the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.
Let’s all resolve to carry forward the Torch of Peace and advocate for the end of chemical wars. Let not the ghost of death and destruction resurrect from the tomb of gloom.
Arindam Roy,
Editor-in-Chief,
Different Truths
May 14, 2017
—
Editorial Board
- Michele Baron (Kyrgyzstan/USA)
- Roula Pollard (Greece)
- Arindam Roy (India)
- Anumita Chatterjee Roy (USA)
#1. adrift
#2. Pity on I, We do not Lie
the war in Syria has killed us;
has everyone forsaken us?
how far can we cry?
only to lie that we need
such lie to die? to our eyes, i do not lie, yet—all you, in whose sight
i cry, what could have brought this? all lies, i cry, evil laugh at our sides, to die;
… have you seen those who died?
i questioned my sights
at right and left; they …say; they …laugh? or do they even, ever,
cry? pity not i…but to those who lie… we could cry and encourage
not to our sights; they questioned … all?
they don’t cry, even if we
cry at humanity, cry at those who cried, and beyond those …family;
…we die now…
peace? has gone to lie?
humanity — it, indeed, has died? …and to cry, do we enjoy this sight?
or do we stay at night? wondering and watching lies?
and, yet, cannot we deprive these sights?
..our hearts will be crushed by
the death of sights and the bombing
death… have they mastered only to be bewildered by
the agony of those who cry? i do not lie only to die
… but OUR hearts cry.
©Therese Carmel I. Huelar, Manila, Philippines
#3. I Stand Against War
Put it on national television, for everyone to see
With one deep breath against genocide, against all my worries,
I see it and it sickens me too
Subtlety is not a natural act of human consciousness, I whispered to myself,
patience blossoming from dread
A witness to the slow, fleeting genocide of stars
as they are burned out one by one
All went lame; all blind;
There was the stench of the dead,
And the dying look at the World with Open Eyes;
The children burn alive; they booby-trap the dead,
Angry scratches mar the wood in twisted lines
Because war is wrong
The art of war through the use of internal fighting
We are made from the same blood, and yet we are divided into nations
And boundaries lead me into this dark land
Life drains out more every day, but I only channel love in defence
I said You do not care, please Lord, I lied.
© Dr. Brajesh Kumar Gupta, Banda, India
#4. Wild Stream
whether
compassionate stream of tears will change
the face of human vision of the world
like a dry riverbed
not bring forth a life
same way the people will not give a birth
to The Man
who is absent within their souls still
Dr. Dariusz Pacak, Vienna, Austria.
#5. Entangled Shadows
(Dedicated to the war victims)
The misty farm is
in this inhospitable world of redacted virtues.
Plagiarism is sowed over the deserts that weep
and cry the sister’s shadows.
Some men protagonists, witnesses and accomplices,
lawyers of all the known devils
It is not that they feel the lack of war,
it is that they cannot live in peace
and they neither live, nor let to live, in peace with other men.
It divides in the Middle East the dawn:
in one part of the world victory is sung,
and in the other, the daybreak weeps
to the nostalgic drift of a reddish moon
painted during a satanic rite of allied men who ask for blood.
The wind of deep wounds lowers his eyes and wipes off his tears,
Doesn’t want to see how, through power,
a cloud of blind men ignore the principle of life —
opening the chronic and cruel human madness.
The exposed life is afraid of being drowned on the ground,
and the sky ruffled with fire horrifies the houses.
Repressed shame creates blue ghosts
that scream with the mouths of misfortune through a sea of pain,
for this death senses neither pity, nor piety
that limps with dark pettiness
… dragging the weight of all the futile violence
caused by the absurd splash
of a closed conscience that doesn’t ask questions
if the sky spits in open fire and the nightmares of stereotyped death.
©Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano, Bologna, Italy
#6 Promised Land
They looked up — crying for mercy?
No, they were searching for
the Promised Land,
That Luther had claimed
would one day exist on Earth.
Floating through clouds
on angel wings,
They were born to turn
dreams to promises.
Real as the sun and the moon,
But not as dark as deception
riding along human veins,
blackened by weapon-soot.
That Promised Land
Never happened on Earth.
Where truth would play no havoc
with blooming lives,
Where Sarin would not waft
through fragrant breeze,
choking bleeding hearts.
Those tiny feet would fly off today
to the real heaven.
Poisoned blood, numb limbs,
blue lips, helpless stares.
No laughter, no cries.
Sarin silenced them.
Sarin sealed the fate of a Promised Land.
Luther, your promise was never kept!
©Saheli Mitra, Kolkata, India
#7. It is not the Serene Selene, it is the Siren Sarin…
Man’s Odyssey reached Mars, now his death rays can reach every nook and corner,
His monster eyes became bigger than the earth with Cyclopean view disorder!
When Mother Nature spring surprises every day, man becomes jealous and panicky,
Unable to tolerate harmony and peace his greed perfects persecution of humanity… so finicky!
Adolf Hitler gassed and killed six million Jews, but he did not use Sarin in his homeland,
It is a man-made toxin, mixes easily with water and food; most volatile in nature its rapid effect!
The victim drowns in his running nose and watering eyes, small pupils cry in pain,
Vision blurs, sweat floods, chest tightens, cough thunders, all nine holes open in rain!
These organophosphate pesticides block the neuromuscular junctions with a scowl,
Muscle twitches, heart cries for air, headaches, convulsions crawl, paralysis prowl,
Breath-taking choking strikes; life’s candle slowly glimmers dark before the final howl!
What remains is the Death’s rattle for a minute or so, and the earth opens its grave-bowel,
These are the harbingers of Death – Hydrogen Cyanide, Phosgene, Mustard and Chlorine,
But tell me, who packs them into Honest John missiles, and Aum Shinrikyo’s liquid design?
All genocide obsessions and con-apocalyptic visions paralyze humanity’s progression!
On the graves of slain, tears and flowers flow in revision;
So soon forgetfulness sets in;
Life moves on!
(Sarin-GB is a lethal nerve gas)
©Lsr Prasad, Hyderabad, India
#8. People against Genocide
The ultimate truth is love
A nexus to be framed
Only love to be inculcated and digested
Wars are satanic weeds
People against genocide
Pray and submit to the Lord
He, alone, can save thy basic virtues
You are born to love
And dance in the valleys of love
Why these clandestine vices?
Say no to wars
Killings and contempt are only sins
Kill avarice with love
Innocents are pious souls
Do not murder them
Follow the Ten Commandments
Of love and light
Come out of the caves of darkness
Ecstatic merging with the Lord is awaiting
Ah coevals! Shine as protagonists
Of love and truth
We are against genocide
As we the children of God
Of an oceanic flow.
©Neelam Malik, Rohtak, Haryana, India
#9. Chemical Attack (Syria)
When they first dropped their bombs,
We all fled to our homes,
To gather up our babies,
The old and the infirm.
Then our throats started tingling,
Tears began running from our eyes,
A few brave men and women,
Shook their fists in defiance at the sky.
Explosions erupted everywhere,
Even through the already ruined streets,
Than Abbas, my neighbour,
Fell and died in agony at my feet.
My friend’s old grandfather,
Who had never done any wrong,
While praying in the mosque that day,
Choked to death before his son.
Fadilah’s little baby,
Was barely three months old,
One moment she was warm,
The next minute she was cold.
We know well their system,
We can see through all their lies,
After we counted up the bodies,
They still swore no one had died.
©John Fingleton (Löst Viking), Lambare, Paraguay
#10. Chemicals of War
Where chemicals of love and peace should be
Children gassed and dying
Crying
Innocent victims of
Man’s inhumanity to man.
Bombs falling
As humans sink
Lower
And lower.
Respect, consideration,
Love & Peace
Where are you now?
Another school shooting today
What are we seeing?
What are we teaching in our world?
What are we learning?
Are we learning?
Anything
Anything at all?
In our world,
In our school without walls
We see anger, hate & killing
Where we need love, compassion & peace.
So, take your pain
And paint your heART out
Write your poetry of peace
Sing your song of love
Dance your dance of happiness
May your Doves of Peace
Fly high eternally
And carry their message
Where good rises above evil
Where peace wins over war
Through the arts
Peace is the way
For all,
By all.
©Debora Gillman, Santa Cruz, California, USA
#11. Priam’s Lament
Hawks circling everywhere and butchering doves, reddening skies/earth.
Beware of the hawks roaming within/without. In the global market, war, hatred and terror— multi-billion dollar business promoted by big state players as part of foreign policy and containment. Hatred, the most potent weapon of its preachers. We are the perpetual Other for some groups; they, for us.
Stop!
The genocide everywhere. Powers that be. Stop the carnage, O Neros of the world! The use of chemicals—Sheer barbarism! Killing fields filled with torn limbs—sickening for the civilized! Increasing the blood-lust of the crazy fighters like a crazed Achilles, baying for more blood and violence, gloating over a dead Hector, carrying the dead body around the ramparts, in a most unheroic manner!
War!
Has it ever benefitted anyone, except the marauders, delivering chilling video messages
to a benumbed world? Their brutal version of cleansing; eliminating the enemy.
Chemicals deadly are now being used blatantly for murdering hapless citizenry caught in the conflict zones/ hotspots—not of their making; folks caught in the lethal web created by power-seekers in the name of purity of religion/nation… or elites trying to protect a bloody throne by ordering mass annihilation of their own! Madness, unchecked!
Innocents!
You massacre the citizens and derive virile gratification out of mass destruction of beings and land.
Hearken to my words, you foot soldier! You can wipe out cities through lethal methods but can never slay the idea of peace, harmony and brotherhood.
Shriller the cries for blood. Firmer the voices of love.
And it will triumph! Sanity over madness.
©Sunil Sharma, Mumbai, India
#12. People against Genocide
The victory you always claim, for your long stay
Stained with the blood of innocents, the world will display.
A misguiding meaning of religion for ideology, your share.
Manipulating sovereignty, to prolong dictatorship you dare.
How sanguinary you are! In the name of cheap revenge
An aerial dropping of chemical weapons is not wise to avenge.
Beheading of innocent infants is too extremists’ brutal reality.
All of us must condemn such a hideous crime against humanity.
Indeed, two evil spirits are really enough, so clear
To ruin humanity, brotherhood and world peace.
No ground of morality left for both of you
To justify your atrocities. Humanity bleeds.
One who enjoyed to bathe in the river of blood
Will be swept away by a flood of million tears.
The voice of solidarity for humanity is so clear.
It’s time to wake up and unite to wash away evil’s dears.
Everyone digs his own grave before he really dies
How fearful life is! To feel the breath of inevitable death
In the grip of civil war, beneath the shade of cruel death.
In his own native land, he lives a life of exile until he dies.
Oh, it is enough. Enough. Red line beyond the limit of tolerance.
Be conscious of the root cause of civil war and terrorism.
Raise voice against genocide through chemical like Sarin.
Create a sense of solidarity against terrorists’ attacks.
Be afraid of the wrath of Almighty that you always pray.
Think, the tree of atrocity never bears fruits of compassion.
Let us replace hatred by dedicated love and affection.
Be merciful and empathetic to refugees around you.
Someone is watching from above to reward you…
A spirit of Enlightenment and ultimate celestial Joy.
©Tulsi Shrestha, Kathmandu, Nepal
#13. To Syria: With Vengeance
Gasping for breath
Bewildered souls
Questioning their fate
Asks a child to his mom, “What makes them bomb us today?”
Looking up at the smoke-filled sky and the debris laden earth
The mother thinks, “What vengeance is being fulfilled and by whom?”
Answerless questions fill their minds
As a new air strike marks the dawn
A brother pulls the lifeless body of his baby sister
Another day passes by when nothing changes in Syria
Has the world gone mute or blind or is blood of the innocent
Just another reason for posting a status on Facebook.
©Sehar Siddiqui, Allahabad, India
#14. Syria, do you hear the Heaven Cries!
Don’t think somebody is there
in this crazy world of hate!
Me, I can not
write about love, fever of lust, nectar of spring nature,
hearth filled with pleasure,
smiling youth in morning coffee,
extendable dining table for dinner…
I cannot!
Dreams tortures me,
uninterruptedly I do see blood,
sweaty, feelings roam, is blazing the sky,
due to you, children, pregnant women, families groan!
Continues the Chemical Attack
see, suicide of the Honorary Woman,
damn it, what shall I say to conscience!
your train of Throne has no mercy,
Lucent is hate in your genes,
powerful, ruthless peels innocents!
Not far from your consciousness, poison, murder, rape, occurs
burning is Syria, take care, are children headless,
in two separated in limbs,
weeping soul, feelings shake, goose,
I do shudder, I pray for you,
Syria, in ash you are,
Ancient Pearl in blood and fire
gas is burning your descendants,
THEY, they, they poured out their anger and hatred accumulated
in a dirty politics…
Please no more, Wars, Please…
©Tyran Spahiu, Prizren, Kosova
#15. Let me Live!
Say, when I was born on Earth, it was declared not
That I would be its Queen, that I would have sole right over it
That I would decide over everything about it
From the food that my brothers and sisters would consume
To the faith they would revere!
Pray, I was born, like you, like everyone else
I was born, in a world, which belongs to us all,
While, at the same time, which belongs to none of us!
And you are like me; when you were born
It was proclaimed never that you would have the right to be its
King or its Queen
As to have the power to decide the life choices of your many brothers and sisters!
Like my siblings, I am free, like them, I seek freedom
I thirst for it, for I am a mere moth, I fly around in my own microcosm
And get overwhelmed when I see the mysterious blinding light of our existence
So, pray, let me live, let me paint my life on a wall
Let me weave my dreams from their beginnings to their ends
Let me write of my journeys, of my falls and my uprisings
Let me articulate my songs, whether sad or rhythmic
Let me be, yes, let me bloom, let me wilt, let me do as I wish!
By killing me, by killing me and my kin, you shall not achieve much
You shall still not be proclaimed King or Queen of this world
You shall still meet with your end, like me, like everyone else!
Say, when I was born on Earth, I did not really know what to expect
Except that I thought I would jump in exaltation when my feet would touch the soil
I thought I would feel the thrills of my senses’ responses
But I expected not having to fear for my life
To pray to be allowed to see tomorrow
To hope to survive, and to keep envying those who are free!
©Anoucheka Sweety Gangabissoon, Mauritius
# 16. Complement
Fusing the colour of my skin to yours,
Smooth the friction of coldness.
From dreams in high places,
Between caresses or verses of evil.
Whoever was the indiscreet moon?
Pasting its brightness everywhere,
Presumed, radiant and without pride,
Its radiance does not judge the dawn.
There is the sun so opposed to the moon,
Complements the beginning and the end,
Of the blond day and the dark night
Entangled in time and wind.
The bow of daisies among rose bushes.
Struggling to change celestial beings.
The aurora boreal full of spirits,
Falling at dusk, transforming your new being.
It’s the green nature, gentle princess
Perfect between seasons, with no lessons or expectations.
And so within the Earth, its colours will defend,
So the skins and the different faces,
Multiply the goods of yesterday.
Of today and forever, beautiful life, beautiful penitent.
Accept the days, their colours and different shine.
I am human, lover of life.
Goodness will be reborn in hearts of darkness.
Without stopping the arrow that divides love.
Infinite melody, sweet at night, honey by day.
©Sandra Ssarmiento, Los Angeles, California, USA
#17. Mistress
I am a contemporary poet
mistress of the revolution
I write my poems and ideas
as short fragments
from my soul
flows a river of words
shameless
with no other borders than
time
space
the past is mine
the future is yet to gain
if I do not fight
I lose myself in verbal sculptures
and deluded images
of a falsely illustrated reality.
Navigating among thousands of words
I will still be writing in a void
of dried up tears
indifference.
©Marian Eikelhof, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
#18. Tell Him
I was sleeping, mama
They thought I was awake
I was sleeping, mama
I didn’t any trouble make
Why did they gas me, mama
What did I do to them?
I was always a good boy mama
I never called anyone a name…
No school no playground no park
No kites no balloons no ball
I didn’t complain to anybody,
I didn’t complain at all…
You said it will be fine mama
You said it’ll be okay
After this crazy dirty war
There’ll be a clear light of day!
I wasn’t going to tell you this
The gas has burnt my tongue
But you should know just what I want
And what really went all wrong!
He hasn’t heard your prayers mama
He hasn’t heard, your god.
His lights aren’t shining fair mama
And I think that’s very odd!
Just tell him I’ll not seek him now
Tell him I’m just gone
The brains he gave the human race
Are now trained to kill his son.
The unlived years, the dreams I dreamt
The wishes unfulfilled
Tell him it’s a human face
That the lot of us had killed!
©Nilakshi Roy, Thane, Maharashtra, India
#19. Free them O’ God!
Free them O’ God!
For, the wind is spewed with ashes of hatred,
The bilboes that wait to bangle the innocents,
Hauling them down the barbed streets,
And caging them up, to blaze in iron aviaries.
Free them, O’ God!
For the ocean is not thirsty anymore,
It is full till its gullet, quaffing in pints the viscous gore,
Sluicing out from the naive skulls,
And from the distressed hems of their hearts.
Free them O’ God!
For the sod is no longer bleak,
It has drenched itself in the guileless claret,
Flushing out from their green dead ingenuous veins,
And sloshing about under its skin.
Free them O’ God!
For the day doesn’t know, for whom to wake up,
When merry-go-rounds and slippery slopes,
Are becoming the roller coaster rides to deaths,
And the juvenile paper crowns breed orphans.
Free them O’ God!
For even the night hasn’t slept for years,
The sounds of tormented voices, in the lap of gunshots,
Are hovering and echoing in its ears,
Making it stone deaf in every midget of seconds.
Free them O’ God!
Free them all!
Free your pure and guiltless mortals,
What sins have they sowed?
That you are making them plough for!
©Nayanika Dey, Durgapur, West Bengal, India
#20. Standing against Violence
The sky is grey,
The bombs and guns fill
in the air,
Nature’s beauty is stained
by barbarous bloodshed,
Hopes, dreams and freedom
are smashed within seconds
Men, women, and children
Each of them has a heart,
Each of them has a soul,
Mental peace,
Protective love,
Blissful joy
are the birthrights of each
So, selfish, disillusioned killers,
Please don’t snatch their rights,
their needs,
Please put an end to
the unjustified hatred,
the fruitless violence
My Poetic Voice
will keep on shouting,
“Please stop,
Please stop,
Please stop,”
until you really stop.
©Vatsala Radhakeesoon, Mauritius
# 21. I’m Indifferent to Genocide
We dream as long as we breathe in.
We cease to live in this world’s inn,
The moment we falter in loving our song,
Walking shadows are we with the only bond.
Dreams! She murmurs, and to me, she
Flings a surprised look, inexplicable to me.
Suddenly I return from trance to reality.
I see her no more in my eye custody.
Kill, kill and kill the innocent, the humanity.
Life to me seems precious, I fear when I see
The rich bombing the child, young and old.
The news of genocides makes me only cold.
She reappears before my mental eyes.
She with her tears loves me to rise,
And whispers to my right ear “come out,
And do what you want those killers to trout”.
Terror’s hatred needs to be wiped out.
But not at the cost of the innocent.
Nature flows in its way and all we greet,
Avoiding nations in nasty bloody teeth.
She then smiles oblique at me and echoes,
“Let us all see the civilisation’s end!
Be blind to writhing pain, people in Syria
Suffer and in some other parts of world!”
©Basudeb Chakraborti, Kolkata, India
# 22. Dyed Conscience
Earth to earth, dust to dust
we are bound to blend.
Yet when conscience dyed soldiers
under conscience dead leaders
crush life out of masses
like juice out of cherry,
it sickens the very soul!
Lucky are the dead in a way,
they are not in pain anymore.
The ones with wounds
that bleed are lucky too,
their wounds have cures.
Those that do not bleed
are the ones doomed;
their wounds are soul deep
no therapy heals that deep
They are doomed to ache, for aye,
under a psyche scarred deep;
the gaping eyeballs of the startled Dead
pop up in their sleep.
That wretched stare of Death
be it from ally or adversary,
civilian or soldier, defies erasure!
War is the mother of all evils
father of all lies!
Swaggering arrogance of nations
massacres Innocence
with mother of all bombs!
Let us kill War the Killer,
with swords of words!
©Elsy Satheesan, Angamaly Kerela, India
# 23. Stop this Genocide
Billions of dollars are being spent
To look for life in other planets
And trillions spent to kill life
On this one.
Stop this war, stop this genocide,
With hearts parched, terror-etched faces,
Blowing rings of hope,
In the midst of despair, nursing a dream to find the dead alive,
Among bomb blasts and the furies of war.
The cacophonies and atrocities around us
Are engulfing us alive, crying for mercy.
How long will the blood of martyred sons
Write the History of the world?
How long will scheming puppeteers
Play with the strings of chemical weapons?
Look around … look at Syria,
The cry of mothers, loud and clear,
Asking world leaders to stop war,
Asking poets to write about peace,
And musicians to play the tunes of love.
Look at the volcanoes sending ash
Billowing up to five kilometers,
The huge forests burnt with the force of fire,
The fury of the winds, the waters
With their powers submerging all.
Mother Nature is revolting,
She is saying,
Make peace,
Stop this genocide.
©Pramila Khadun, Mauritius.
# 24. The Choice is Ours
mankind skirts the fringes of insanity and
tiny brittle wings — incidental fodder of barbarism —
collapse before they learn to fly
ridiculous violence — innocent blood —
not yet aware of life and they are dead!
Death does not distinguish — it only extinguishes
that maimed origami bird is crumpled courage
wedged helpless between the parentheses of fears
tongue knotted, conscience contorted
that’s us— crouching under self-preservation—
macabre skulls with the eyeless stares question:
Why this furtive silence? Speak!
immature reactions inflame terror’s tandav, so come
let us choose instead to celebrate our sacred inner core—
enduring, undying — unifying all of the humanity
dipping into its purity, learn to widen our sphere
of inclusion. Together we’ll embrace ‘lovingkindness’…
be the flutes that waft the songs of love and peace
rooted in our centre — part of the whole — let us
pay homage to the Divine Spark in all
and interconnected, expand the web of oneness
©Shernaz Wadia, Pune, India
# 25. Father of Syria
‘Stay here quiet for a while’
The father had told his girl with a smile,
The day had been usual, a Syrian kind,
Some people were starving, some looked desolate, almost dying,
But the father till then that didn’t mind,
And then just a sudden jolt, a cry,
What did come swooping, a drone? A fly?
‘Gas!’ someone yelled, ‘bomb!’ cried another,
Down the street ran the father,
He had left his little one, only daughter,
Besides the shop, beneath a tree,
The smoke couldn’t make him see,
What was happening and why?
But he heard surely her cry!
Minutes passed like moments of shock
The buildings had turned into rubbles of rock
And mortar and debris of bricks,
The father from the dust his daughter picked,
She was gasping, was not she?
The father in the smoke couldn’t see,
People he saw running like ghosts,
Sooty, grey, figures unrecognizable most,
And he picked his daughter up,
Was she breathing? Or had she stopped?
The way to the hospital looked miles away,
The father with the girl in arms in dust swayed,
Many more like him had been there too
Totally taken aback, without any clue,
Thousands of miles away in conference rooms
The modern kings and queens
Saw ‘live’ those pictures of doom
And conjectured and debated over the crisis,
Who had done so? Rebels or terrorists?
Meanwhile the Syrian father with daughter in arms
Ran through smoky dusty street
Not knowing to whom really his girl caused harm.
©Moinak Dutta, Kolkata, India
# 26. Because Syria Deserves it
The time knows everything, He spend the bill. I wanted to live my way, The suture being due.
The world needs Peace, And not of men of war, The tyrant is rapacious, He expects his prey better.
Let us unite for good, For the sake of the Countries, Always, without looking at who, Remembering the roots.
BECAUSE SYRIA DESERVES IT, And the countries of the world, For this the dictator perishes, For a more fruitful world.-
©Uberfil Viera, Uruguay
# 27. The Sidewalk has two Faces
To my dear Syrian friend Sahar Eid al – Nukayel, with love
Lustreless is this jasmine in the day darkness
It sews up the wounds of the city
Asking about the Damascus sparrows
How are they liking the war?
The street that goes through the neighbourhood
Is sad…
It has no window through which clouds overlook,
It has no balconies on which birds sing,
No neighbour to knock at the door … no cat to taste the ink…
The war-torn roads cry with the departed
… and for the betrayers.
The sidewalk has two faces
One for history and culture … One for falseness and treason
The poisoned dagger mocks Trees … Winds … And rains …
It approaches the bereaved expectations
The fornicating death praises destruction
And this child lying on the beach will inevitably come back to his classroom
…to the warmth of his mother, as she waters the morning with taste of flowers
O Damascus … You are missed by the dream … Betrayed by the night … And lovers.
Caravans of grass and wild bobwhites are crying;
The cloudy homeland is passing by Zenobia
Reassuring her about the sun
… And the names.
The salts of time are brim-full of corpses
Cutting the strain of clouds
“Kamanjas”
The poem
The news broadcast
©Belhoudi Moufida, Translated by John Henry Smith, Tunisia
# 28. Stop the Genocide
Oh! Stop this merciless mass killing
of the innocents, bodies buried under
Collapsed buildings and iron doors!
You can hear the feeble cry of the dying!
For God’s sake
Drop your guns, knives and bombs
Stop this brutal act of yours
Why you want a world without peace
Are you happy to see the motherless
Are you happy to see the homeless
Are you happy to see the poor little children writhing in pain
With empty stomachs and naked bodies?
Do you enjoy the gang-rape of young girls who have been dreaming of a home?
Don’t you have a heart?
For mercy’s sake drop the guns
And turn your eyes to the Creator
You have no right to kill
You have no right to turn the world
Into a hell of corpses
Stop terrorising and killing
For the sake of peace!
Light a lamp in your unkind hearts
Let the love flow out of you
To show the world you are transformed
Into great men of honor and love
© Sarala Balachandran, Kolkata, India
# 29. Why? Oh! Why?
To dominate, you decide — every truth, every lie
Destroy, annihilate, jeopardise human life
An undreamt nightmare eyes watch…
As bombs and missiles disintegrate and torch
Temples, churches, castles and homes…
Mindlessly on graveyards roam
Like ghosts and ghouls, souls their own
Enslaved prisoners of their own mind
Brothers inhuman…shrewd, unkind
Wake up under the fallen sky
An arcade of Tron, wizardly vibe
Use anything to kill, biological weapons to cyanide
Enjoy the pain in the eyes …as people die
Killed them, why for fame, gain or fun
Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan
Senseless Caligula or Chinese Chairman?
Bigoted, crooks and mercenaries
Indulge in fraudulence and treachery
You say, there will come a better day
Then why today, hundreds of children lay
In a pool of blood…in hatred that slays?
Your hatred you vent on progeny innocent
Subject them to unjust treatment
You can deny, but can you hide
The ruthless act of genocide?
For ages nothing has changed, nothing will
Until ambitions soar only on wings of good will.
© Nandita Samanta, Kolkata, India
# 30. People against Genocide
See the Syrian chemical war,
With the raise of at least
80 bloodsheds per week so far.
The mass of victims are the innocent kids;
Before the war, they used to laugh, and play,
And blink from their petals of soft eyelids.
During wars, children, women, and elders
Are the worst affected.
They are forced to be nomads, and we look at them
From eyes seeing the suspected.
As the conflict enters its 7th year of discord,
Approximately 465,000 Syrians have been killed—and the rest have lost their dignity of concord.
The rebels have barbarically killed each lively zeal,
As if such ill-breeds have neither mercy nor ability to feel.
Due to lack of freedom and economic woe, the future growth rate is so slow;
With much of Syria laid in ruins, one thing is certain—there is no sigh of significant progress.
Rebuilding the nation, after the war ends, will be a lengthy, extremely difficult process.
The situation today reveals each new blunder;
The new rebellion groups again wanna thunder.
Who has given these inhumans the right to sow the seeds of separations?
They have kept their country among the list of world’s most hated nations.
Let’s protest against the merciless killings,
The decayed bodies not cremated due to thoughts of heinous fillings
Let our voices be heard,
Not ignored.
Let’s raise this issue, to have
A potent weapon
Of accord
©Durgesh Verma, Varanasi, India
# 31. A Cry of a Syrian Child
O! America
Stop this brutal and inhuman action against humanity
Don’t destroy the innocence of my childhood,
Don’t ravage my sleep, filled with dream of peace
O! the barbarians! stop this chemical war
Stop destroying my motherland
Look at me,
The biscuits of my share
Have been shattered into shards
By the bomb blasts,
Hunger bursts like explosives,
Between my chest and stomach
The pieces of lamentation have stuck
Into my throat,
They are neither swallowed nor gorged
Look for a while to this side…here,
There cling to bare soles of my feet
Exhaustion of intense explosives
Being rained for years,
On the wilderness of my motherland,
And the iron-kites are constantly
Flying over my head,
And I am empty-bellied.
O! America
In my lap, I have sterile earth of my land
And the pieces of exploded missiles.
What will you give me,
Against this drabbed earth and rubble of missiles and chemicals?
No…..Nothing….
But my innocence, beats of hearts, smiles, dreams,
Books, copies, pencils, classrooms, Desks, chairs, playgrounds,
Wings of butterflies, my fellows, families colours of flowers,
And the entire “peace”
Can you give me back all this
Which is still breathing under the ruins of my motherland.
©Ayub Khawar, Lahore, Pakistan
# 32. Syria in the Blood
Cry, bloody planet Earth, cry
Bloody Syria sleeps not in my eyes
False guardians of democracy are poisoning her…
They smell of Coke, burger, and fries
Syria does not sleep, she watches day and night
… She smells of gunpowder
She sings and cries to the sound of bombs
Shrouded in clouds of smoke
Hardened warriors, please, stay away from greed
And build not your happiness and fortune in other’s blood;
Bring the love, joy, and prosperity –
Then, finally, can begin the era of love and equality
Every man has the same right to life
… it is Crime to deprive him of that right in anyone’s name
My poem has been raped before it began
They read the poem but did not read me, and it hurts them
Syria, walk to freedom
In their gunpowder and bombs, there is no democracy
Just greed, wrapped with cellophane lies
And their promises are big, colorful lies
Syria, those who do not love you as they love their mothers
That from their graves curse in their gluttony and ferocity
Those who on the blood of innocents, and seizures of other peoples
Build their fortress in the name of the Creator of worlds
In the name of false democracy…
Defiantly send them the message of freedom
Syria, march in unison for the freedom
My poem and I march with you
… the True and peaceful world is on our side
©Ibrahim Honjo, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
# 33. Monster of the Deep
The monster came from the deep, mother,
his eyes were fire-balls
that rolled and seared the tree-tops
and still burned
until they burnt all.
He clawed the sky in angry rage,
and the clouds, till they bled;
blood was dripping all around
till all turned red.
Red was the colour of the leaves,
the petals of white flowers
turned red in the garden, too,
in the April showers.
He strode in boots fitted with nails
dug deep in reddish clay,
his voice boomed, like aeroplanes
that towards the earth did spray
death, that filled, mother,
the air with acrid smells
of pain, loss, the deepest sorrows
of births and betrayals.
©Tirthankar Das Purkayastha, Kolkata, India
# 34. Peace
Peace is my passion, the thing I extol … Linked in its fashion, my soul to your soul
Peace is my mission, the thing I impart,
Brought to fruition, my heart to your heart
Peace is my measure
The thing I pursue,
Greatest of treasure the world ever knew
Peace is my story,
The thing that I share…
Gladness,
And glory,
As near as my prayer
©Richard Doiron, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
# 35. Like Auschwitz
Auschwitz could be anywhere.
Plans and ideas are waiting in people’s minds.
It only needs time and a little-barbed wire.
It is enough to close the sky above the earth,
Extinguish hopes, break the rainbow.
Atomic suns will brighten again
with burning rays of death.
Choking dust of hatred will blow in everywhere.
The sown wind will stir up the sandy storms.
The Great War about everything and about nothing.
Losers, winners
©Alicja Maria Kuberska, Inowrocław, Poland.
# 36. Befallen Life
For some of us,
Life befell
Behind the barbed wire.
There, Numbers were born
— worked,
— died,
and death?
often visted not only
in bath.
Everyone
wearing
striped, dirty suits
could have befallen —
Life.
©Eliza Segiet, Translated by Marta Szara–Turton, Kraków, Poland
# 37. Butcher
Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?
You, who used to play soccer together,
Excitement from the huge and vibrant kites in the sky!
A mother used to feed you with the same fondness of affection;
How could you target the nozzle of the gun?
Who set an impermeable layer in your eyes?
There are roaring armed convoys patrolling the streets with noses upward
Bombs shower, like torrential downpours from the sky
There is not even one tiny space to hide…
The lungs fill with smoke and dust of the debris.
Mother’s silent body is under the wreckage of the walls and roofs.
The hands of the babies emerge from beneath her chest with a desperate desire to live.
The torn body flies like a burned piece of paper.
Come back, and see — no one is the enemy!
The blood is warm, the exact same color as yours.
Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?
A merciless butcher, without any sympathy
Takes the life away
Are you one of them?
Are you
Really
One of them?
©Tuwa Noor, Buckingham, Florida, USA.
# 38. In Your Rivers, Chopping are the Clouds
In your rivers chopping are the clouds,
O Lilith,
The thirst of orchards abandoned
In the bends of the night sheets
O Averse, you are rage
In the terrain of the chest caged…
Your figs are not yet ripened
On the branches of rebellion.
In the table of desire
The spark of fire hits the breast,
And you melt temptation
From Adam’s rib.
O Dancer on the lust of infatuation,
Melodies
In my books, baptized with rain
Of the spells of appetite
… Pour your strongest perfume
In the tumbler of imagination
… The sparrows, imprisoned in my dreams,
Are looking for your cooing
For the pulsing radiance in the prayers of the lips
And the spilled, sighing inhalation awakens
The oblations in the dark
… a Pain moaning for your forest, that widely opens the trunks of her leaves
… Fertilizes Roots decayed by the waiting mites
And drinks hunger from
The arroyos
… loved
By oblivion
©Kareem Abdullah, Translated by John Henry Smith, Baghdad, Iraq
# 39. After the Bomb
Why have you brought me here?
My knees are concrete now
Head of straw
Arms hang uselessly
And wait to be commanded
Why did you bring me here?
To this field of blackened and contorted rice
Dirt-shrouded pastel, cowering beneath a wasted sky
Where no wind blows on napes of necks
Why have you brought me here?
To view what, this stifling month,
Laid bare, at last, the confidential message
Cracked earth, devoid of life and water,
Of all choices and direction
What now? To spit and see
Perhaps an aged worm convulse
The fool: I hear, a child’s echo sighs
And asks the age-old question… simply, why?
©Dr Ian Hale PhD, Bristol, England
# 40. Stop the Destructive War
Amid silent cold bodies,
Lying on the red soil
I search my father’s earthly frame
Whose fingers I grasped
While running with his slow steps;
His ears that to my silent breaths counted
Now remain deaf to my cry.
Somewhere must have hidden my mother
Under the dark cloudy sky,
No star is present to tell me
The address of her whereabouts.
Alas, my brother,
Lying in the bed of red rocks,
Being cold and motionless,
Reposes for eternity,
Scornfully avoiding my invitation
To play the colourless game with me.
I, having lost all,
In the darkness,
With the rage of war struggle
And pray to stop the destructive war
Whose dark shadow
To my weeping heart penetrates every second
And compels my sobs
To break the dreadful silence of moor.
© Alok Mishra, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, India
# 41. Manmade Madmen’s Hell
Bombs with chemicals launched to kill
As if missile shots were not enough
Screams and blood, death of innocent
Mutilated pile babies sans breath
Mothers reduced, rendered childless
Children orphans and homeless
Gory scenes, cut throat massacre
Madmen causing slaughter macabre
Heaven’s crying blood where you created hell
Who’s given you the right for bloodshed?
Came here we not to become kings
Albeit to lend hands to all beings
For good, you were born not genocide
Wake up and stop this fratricide
Or you will burn in your own hell
Here and now ere you reach true hell
©Sunila Khemchandani, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
# 42. Genocide 101: This is how you do it
The Boys… a can of paint, a school wall.
“Death to the Doctor” they spray
But Death likes to choose its own.
Words are nothing, something,
everything, argue fathers, politicians,
police. Mother’s weep. Sons trussed
up like chicken, electric wires
swung like whips on wet bodies.
A boy shudders at fifty twitches per second.
A nation twitches in groups of tens,
then hundreds and thousands.
People find a voice in Spray paint.
The Militia… such is our loyalty that even
our feet march to the beat of the President’s
heart. We will not stop at anything.
Some things are never questioned.
We just follow directions, pave the streets
with blood and bones, we do our duty. We know
tricks with rope, with guns, with bombs.
The President… a man is born to be
President, like father, before him.
This is something we Syrians understand.
No! We do not kill. The boys are
sleeping, the girls giggling a moment
ago. We just gouged out the eyes
to help them dream right, sent a cleansing
smoke down little-girl-throats.
Now their laughter has decorum.
The World… turns its face away.
It, too, believes in Decorum.
©Payal Talreja, New Delhi, India
# 43. A Montage of Frozen Cries
I
The curtain rises
The show begins
The lights are dim
The music is loud
Heartbeats accelerate
Breathing intensifies
A sinister tango of Eugenics begins
Welcome to Idlib!
All routes to hell are open.
II
A howl of flames
A debris of torn muscles
Bodies damp with blood
Every inch of cubic air
Rinsed in chemical gas
A baby’s bottle rolls with a clatter
Unnoticed in the clamor
“Don’t push”, shouted the White Helmets
A thousand individuals become one entity in terror
Easy for Death to harvest.
III
“The enemy must be a magician”, gasped my son
Foaming at the mouth, covered in vomit
“How come, son?”
“Because everyone around is vanishing!”
IV
Narratives entwined around my rib-cage
Saved for peaceful climes
Flow out of my blood stream
Punctured by shrapnel
My spasming limbs know the truth
My stories will never be heard.
©Mamta Joshi, Allahabad, India
# 44. How much can be Life?
A failure brings a success
a hand wash on the other
and vice versa
The night carries the day in his back
The mornings wash smoked windows of the time
and vice versa
You do not know which fills you:
overnight with billions of stars
or a day in which you don’t know
what surprises await you…
We were born from Nothing
and the nothingness has made fruit
and makes the fruit until it is
destroyed
until origins…
How wonderful can be life!
How wonderful can be life?
How much can be life?
and how much can be a miracle?
© Daniela Voicu, Constanta, Romania
# 45. The Cachinnating Dead
A sudden transmutation – witnesses a usual day
in no time
A young tifla smiles last
sound, smoke and smog all together
or the pea-soupier, the chlorine clinched Mosul-
Err…the interflow of Sarin, the nerve agent,
fills the Ghouta’s hemoglobin
with toxic shadows, scribbling bodies or zombies…
The nascent smile beyond the complexities
of such molecular structure or manual intermixture
wriggles, pants, and squirms in pieces, scatters-n-perches,
on the wings of the cloud -mushroomed on the ash-blonde ground-
Now an elderly silhouette rushes towards her limbs
her navel experiences some seeds of repercussions and sprouts
in a gas chamber vaulted with thousands of yell and yelp
recently released vaginal fluid can’t satisfy
her escape from the potent phosgene reek
before the onset of Simoom, the chocking ambiance seems ready
to enwrap the slithering souls wooing for
filling up the trenches near the Galilee sea
the Mediterranean’s abysses disseminate
the chemical menaces across the shores
keeping the generations dragooned into walking down with the dead
©Rishikesh Kumar Singh, New Delhi, India
# 46. Together with Syria
It drowns in bitter torment
The moment is gone,
As if to stop thinking about tragedies,
Blood looks redder,
The feeling has no equal,
Death peeps out, and the light goes away.
Feels so cold, the bullet lost,
Crosses boundaries, the fused verse
In pain is the same, people who cry,
Children who die.
Get up Syria, there are much more,
Dreams must be achieved,
Let’s make peace, let’s make a family.
Cheer up, friend, come now,
Be patient neighbour, the war ends,
The poet, another verse will do.
The wind has to carry it,
And your heart must feel it.
Arise Syria, it will all be over,
We will be victorious, beyond
the madness that harasses you.
Lift up Syria, I am with you.
©Esaú C. Jiménez, Jalapa, Guatemala
# 47. Through the Eyes of an Outsider: The World we Live in
As an outsider, I fail to understand why
Our world is becoming an apocalyptic age,
Ruled by violence, ignorance, and rampage
An age where our holy ground is walked by the feet of
Cool-blooded monsters that we’ve fed under our own skins,
The monsters responsible for all the killings, hatred, rapes, shame, and such sins!
As an outsider, I fail to understand why
We live in a world standing on bricks of cruelty and shame.
The world in which countless mothers and their children are being killed and maimed,
The world where we are constantly finding someone to blame,
And constantly living in a fear of being defamed
As we vain in emotion,
And refrain from figuring out a solution!
As an outsider, I fail to understand why
We all are hurting each other,
And destroying our hopes and dreams,
That we fought so hard to build
Why are we pretending to make love and peace?
While the blood is draining down the streets,
With all the chemical weapons and explosives kept secretly,
And no action was taken by the black-suited elites!
As an outsider, I feel the pain and grief,
In the hearts of broken mothers and
Tears of the unborn souls.
So we shall pledge to stand together in dignity and civility,
And keep from prejudice and bigotry!
As we pray for those hurt lives to thrive,
And welcome with open arms, the lost families of the deceased,
To last, but not the least, our love feast!
©Chhavi Mehra, Seattle, USA
# 48. Strawberries are Red
Strawberries are red,
So is the blood.
The child knew it’s their favourite.
“They will come after yours”
He had heard his mother cry,
Moments before it was a Big Bang.
They consumed Thucydides
And tricked us into
The ornate God – the need to destroy.
A carnival of chemicals,
Apportioning nature of a voluntary abortion.
But this is not the first time;
The Greeks, the Romans have tasted Syria’s virginity,
and impregnated too,
Unlike our new anti-deluge,
They call it a cure for humanity.
The children drink menstrual blood,
From the remnants of their toy gun;
The dust convert the lynching storm,
It’s dispersed all over,
Awaking Kannagi among every being.
It’s our breasts burning,
We too know the secret of Thucydides.
They too will burn
Like the bacteria of our womb;
They too will smell blindness
And crave to be our little children
Eating strawberries.
©Aparajita Dutta, Kolkata, India
# 49. Splintered Mirror
Helpless Gods mutely watch
Massacring minds
Nobody truth admits
Breath now poison
Religion divides
All peace dies
Forgotten months nine
Pain and sacrifice
Might is right
Children dead
Man inhuman degenerate
Genocide
Man inhuman degenerate
Children dead
Might is right
Pain and sacrifice
Forgotten nine months
All peace dies
Religion divides
Breath now poison
Nobody truth admits
Helpless Gods mutely watch.
©Geethanjali Dilip, Selam, India
# 50. Shame of my Skin
Spites’ of hands pulled it; in,
out, beneath. Questions were
all that remained; for the
spoken words were heard by silence itself…
the flora of those lips did
not bleed! That was a ballad
of freedom, Syria.
they did not die; only
mirrors slapped the mirrors and
guns killed guns.
So, now are you done
for? Syria! Or undone in the
prudence of the empty?
Now, I can’t look at you;
the clatter of smokes
a shame of my skin,
my tears; my very shape,
and there would be a
remaining mirror, me of
myself, and an unsound
from the pieces of a forsaken glass!
©Arjun, Kolkata, India
# 51. Life, Meant to Live
Life was meant to live,
not die by venomous thoughts
plunging gaseous murkiness in life
destroying lives meant to live,
not depart.
Life was meant to grow, to bloom,
not soak in a poisonous aura of gloom.
Lives not created by man yet, killed
by a vicious act deviating from the divine;
a traumatic loss – yours and mine.
As every nerve twitched
rebelling to live;
As every breath struggled
to make one last attempt to survive
a chemical shadow plunged existence
into un-atoneable despair.
Learning to live,
learning to survive
without hatred, without chemical war.
Protesting against a disgustingly cruel act
of vengeance that only bleeds!
©Shail Raghuvanshi, Chennai, India
# 52. A Plea for Peace
The ruptured wings are rattling to set free
a fragmented lap of maternity is awaiting thee
a deserted soil demanding sprinkle of sea
many famine faces are drafting plea for thee
and diluted hearts are surging for bunches of love
A plucked flower is calling thee
from the land of war
offspring are fostering and festering hand to hand
all fascist and narcissist are bounding as a bond of colour
rivals are musing to plea for peace
and prosperity in the centre of the earth
when you away from this mother earth
All suffered from callous disease and dearth
all ascetic and theist praying through carcass city and beyond the nexus
to uphold heads high and rivulets dignity
so come to us with the message of fraternity
let us be blessed for the eternity of humanity
©Subash Singh Parajuli, Nepal
# 53. Maniac Storm
My tongue-tied; hold still
And found rest from fight…
The shamed spirit in me
Assailed the last scene in my sight
Sweet seasoned storm storms souls
Subjecting our existence to a naked whole.
The last scene my eyes could fix
Blurred as my eyes birthed tears
But you! You maniac, whose faces I can see,
Please! Before I die
Let me say my last prayer
So the Angel that bore me will hear
Dance of my soul as I assail to the world beyond.
My hungry eyes still wink in fullness
While my sorrowful soul searches for forgiveness
Alhamdullahi…. But nay! Blood births my sight
With shadow of shade’s* ankle dancing like okoto*,
And Aminat’s** blood like fresh palm oil begging for a price.
My soulless-soul boils like 100-degree centigrade water!
Now, the interests in death now appear
The sweet-seasoned storm I could no longer bear
So I asked: “Can I have a pen to write to my mother?”
But no, they gave me bullet instead by
Through the gun that speaks French
Alhamdullahi! Comes the last breath.
(Notes: * Shade; ** Aminat : Young girl names).
©Olajuwon Gabriel Timileyin, Osun, Nigeria
# 54. Mercy O Lord!
Rise, O Humanity, put out your arms to save the dying universe
Gasping, choking, writhing pathetically like earthworms drowning in salt on a scalding salver
Breathing in toxic substances bombed by their brethren, foaming at the mouth in helpless agonizing tremors
Khan al Assal, Ghouta, Saraqib, Jobar ghoulish scenes that came hurtling back from 2013
The deadly nerve agent sarin ruthlessly dragging lives to graves
The horrifying chlorine bombs in Talmenes and the sulfur mustard on Marea
No, God did not make man so heartless as to squash fellow humans like vermin under heels of poisonous fumes as he did in Khan Sheykhun
April 2017 was no springtime in Syria this god forsaken year
Men were murderers and mercy had run away to crawl and hide cringing in dark corners of despair
When the tender fourteen-year-old girl looked up fascinated at the yellow mushroom shaped cloud did she know she was going to stifle and gag under its ruthless poison?
Yelping in pain, the cuddly baby did not know why his skin and lips were a lethal blue
Asphyxiated and pupils bulging, the toothless grandma did not know who was killing her
No, this is not why we were given brains; no, this is not why we are alive
Let’s use our magnificent grey cells to build a cocoon of love for our children
Let no human being become a monster when he was created a man
Let no mother wail over a lineup of dead bodies under a blanket to find her son stone cold
Let us make a human chain of such potency that no terrorist is fooled into hallucinating that he is a Messiah
Let the flowers bloom in Syria once again. Let the dragon of disaster be destroyed once and for all.
©Lily Swarn, Chandigarh, India
# 55. Do not Drop More Chemical Weapons in Syria
My heart, since Palm Sunday, is still in mourning. The Creator filled it with love
to function perfectly, but since chemical gasses were dropped in Syria
my heart altered its beats, my heart is not mine, it stops and starts again
exhausted from the abyss of indifference, mass killings, unacceptable cruelty.
It tells me, even stones, rocks, prehistoric animal skeletons have a heart.
When you suffer, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, children, of Syria
the pain of the sky feels the pain of your land, all land shakes from pain.
Trees shed their leaves in mourning.
We live under the same sky, share the same land of compassion, pain, problems.
Your children, wet to the bones, reached our beaches on inflatable boats
two hundred souls packed on each inflatable boat, carrying over maximum capacity.
These war refugees disembarked in the middle of dark nights.
The coast guards arrived anxiously to count corpses.
Greek people shared with you, their bread, blankets, medicines.
Cold stadiums, camping tents, uninhabited rotten factories were your homes.
You shared, thousands of you, the same cold nights, same summer heat.
Have mercy on innocent Syrian people, army men, from the opposite camp.
Don’t be blinded by ignorance; you are human beings.
Do not take any more killing orders, do not drop any more chemical weapons.
Do not kill any more babies, children, orphans, youth, people crippled by war, adults.
Do not kill fathers and mothers, old people. You are not stones. Do your hearts
beat normally, normally as if you were from the same stock of humanity?
The names of people killed were written on public registries too.
Are they unaccountable by the history of the heart?
I will not forget the chemical weapons dropped against innocent people
on Palm Sunday. As for forgiveness, this is a grey, black area.
Who permitted the release of chemical weapons? Were they politicians?
Who? Do politicians allow wars, killing innocent people?
My soul will never permit you to kill, cripple, devour innocent people.
I have banned nuclear weapons from my mind, from my heart.
©Roula Pollard, Athens, Greece
# 56. A Trembling Hope
The throne of Damascus sits on
little carcasses of life itself today…
Where once lived antiquity in shops,
Tranquility on beaches where waves used to sweep and sway…
Beyond any depth of the imagination
How throne and terror killed humanity,
The quivering innocence oozes acid not blood, a living hell, worse than any calamity…
I clutch my 5-month-old closer to my bosom as I think of children being roasted there,
My nerves tremble… I pray raising my hands because if there is no life, then who will be right or fair…
Come together let’s save children of God,
Let them sing hymns of faith, let them grow and flower!
Erase the boundaries and make them safe,
Let the waves carry their dreams and not their lifeless case…
©Rajul Tiwari
A Humanitarian Appeal
We, at Different Truths, join hands with World Poetry Festival (WFP), in furthering the Humanitarian and Peace Cause of ‘The Peace Anthology- People against Genocide: Stop Chemical War in Syria; Save Humanity!’
World Poetry Festival (WFP) is the biggest network of poetic sanctuaries all over the world. Its goal is to create points where poetry can help to build a better world by joining all poets of our planet, working together to achieve peace and equity among humankind.
We request all Different Truths Poets and their fans to follow the link of WFP and sign for petitioning the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moo, and nine others. We are here for a Chemical War-free world.
Click on this Link to sign the Petition: goo.gl/YKDDsJ
Let our Global Voice be heard, loud and clear!
Thanks and Regards,
Anumita Chatterjee Roy, Luz María López,
Managing Editor, Different Truths WFP
Photos from the internet and Painting by Michele Baron.
#Poets #Poems #AgainstWar #AgainstGenocide #Peace #AnthologyAgainstGenocide #PeaceAnthology #DifferentTruthsPoets #DifferentTruths
Poets:
Michele Baron: Michele Baron, world-traveler/Fulbright Scholar presently living in Kyrgyzstan, published A Modest Menu: Poverty, Hunger and Food Security, in Poetry and Prose, in 2015. A World Bank/Urgent Evoke-2010 top-ten-finalist, she develops outreach projects, writes poetry, prose, and non-fiction, is an active musician, painter, artist and “full-time” mother of three school-aged children. She has a self-illustrated book The Dreaming Rugs awaiting publication.
Tulsi Shres
Sehar Siddiqi: Sehar is a communication skill trainer, she has good experience in writing on various issues. She is a blogger, book writer, and enthusiastic traveller. A native of Allahabad, she believes in experiencing the small things of life in a big way. Sehar likes to work in groups and learn new things. Her motto is to enjoy life in small packets.
Uberfil Viera: Uberfil Artigas Viera Oroná Uruguayan, married, 47 years old, is a writer and poet, cultural and social agent, creator of the National Writer’s Day “Mario Benedetti” every September 14 and Shelters for Victims of Domestic Violence and Gender. Author of “Realities to my 40”, which has won several awards in national and international competitions.
Ibra
Rajul Tiwari: Rajul Tiwari is an educationist, writer, author, editor, and poetess. She writes in English and Hindi with equal ease. She heads a publishing unit and her poetry book ‘Beats of Beauty’ has been appreciated by many critiques and poetry lovers. In 2002 & 2004, she was honoured with ‘Editor’s Choice Award’ by International Library of Poetry, US. Rajul is gracious and acknowledges the goodness in others. Her disarming and winsome smile is endearing.