​I am so pained to be reposting these poems. It seems like the so-called leaders and those who carry out wanton violence in the name of religion and caste, gender, land, wherever they may come from, are dragging our world further into the callous abyss of bloodletting. It cannot go on this way. It must not go on this way. It must not be allowed to go on this way. I am helplessly wishing for peace inspite of the orgy of violence and death that seems to have consumed this fragile planet we all call home.




a child of war…


 

as she lies bleeding,

the girl who skipped, hopped to school,

all of nine and a half years old,

with ribbons in her hair and a laugh that was her father’s pride.


 


as she lies bleeding,

shrapnel lodged in her torn stomach,

she stares at her skipping rope,

as her blood soaks it the colour of cherries her mummy buys.


 


as she lies bleeding,

she sees people all around thick black smoke,

blurred visions of scattering feet, shoes left behind,

hearing nothing but the pinging in her smashed eardrums.


 


as she lies bleeding,

she slips away and then she is dead,

a mangled heap of a nine and a half year old girl,

whose laugh was her father’s pride.


 


 


as she lies bleeding,

for even in death she bleeds some more,

shrapnel wedged in her torn stomach,

stealing the light from her bright little eyes.




as she lies bleeding …


in jallianwala bagh in ‘19,

leningrad in ‘42,

freetown in ‘98,

soweto in ‘76,

new york in ’01,

jenin in ‘02,

hanoi in ‘68,

beirut in ‘85,


raqqa, london,

basra, mosul,

yemen, paris,

now.


 


as she lies bleeding,

a little nine and a half year old girl,

whose laugh was her parent’s pride,

we know she’ll bleed more,


tomorrow and in many tomorrows yet unborn,


with shrapnel in her stomach,

ripped open and torn.


 


as she lies bleeding …