Poem shared by Tarique Farooqi and comments by Fouad Kronfol
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| Saeed A. Malik |
While the world is remembering the anniversary of the tsunami which killed thousands in a number of countries, this poem on Gaza is worth posting as it reminds us of many thousands of innocent children and women killed also. While the tsunami was a natural disaster, Gaza is a man-made catastrophe which continues unabated for all to see in real time and on all kinds of public screens.
Fouad
O' Gaza.
It is not one, it is not two,
it's 50,000 kids I see.
Each one has lost an arm or leg,
and some two limbs or more have lost.
Amid their shrieks their limbs were hacked;
they had to scream--
for their limbs were sawn off
when they were not yet benumbed--
they were not anaesthetised.
The hospitals had no medicines.
All border points had been blocked,
and Gaza held in strangulation.
No water food nor medicine,
could make its way through the siege.
Every day of every week,
they were bombed from the sky.
Their shredded bodies picked from ground
into bags of trash were filled.
And thus the dead, made whole again,
were put into the ground to rest.
Those with parts sheared away,
were rushed into the hospitals.
Some were killed in hospital beds,
and some were shot while on their way.
And some with bodies broken, bent,
with gnawing hunger tearing them,
and maddened by a searing thirst,
carried by a wobbling trudge,
from one "shelter" to the next,
were strafed and killed while on their way.
This gory detail every day,
is filmed and seen by every one,
but no one speaks; the silence stays.
No finger moves to bring a stop,
to bloodletting known long
but seldom has its like been seen.
Just one call by telephone
can bring this carnage to an end.
But this call is not being made,
for the one to make it has,
to first stop supply of bombs,
that have so much slaughter made.
But when this call is made at last,
and civilization by the West
is again once more reclaimed,
then every Congress member should,
to Gaza fly and moonscape scan
which their callousness has made,
and though the pools of blood have gone,
drunk up by the thirst of sand,
let them at least the bodies see,
broken crippled charred and bent,
and trash bags full of body parts
standing in for bodies whole
that cemetries entire fill;
and the 50,000 kids
with missing arms, or legs or both,
who have just nowhere to go,
and yet await a tarnished peace,
and a life of crawling that
will keep them on those rubble heaps
which their elders died to keep,
because these were their homes to them,
where their memories were born
and also life's passions deep.
And though they're only rubble now
yet they want these rubble heaps,
for once these had been their homes,
which now are mere memories,
which is all that's left to them,
so memories to try and keep
they shall go on fighting and
daily they shall go on dying.
Saeed A. Malik.
O' Gaza.
It is not one, it is not two,
it's 50,000 kids I see.
Each one has lost an arm or leg,
and some two limbs or more have lost.
Amid their shrieks their limbs were hacked;
they had to scream--
for their limbs were sawn off
when they were not yet benumbed--
they were not anaesthetised.
The hospitals had no medicines.
All border points had been blocked,
and Gaza held in strangulation.
No water food nor medicine,
could make its way through the siege.
Every day of every week,
they were bombed from the sky.
Their shredded bodies picked from ground
into bags of trash were filled.
And thus the dead, made whole again,
were put into the ground to rest.
Those with parts sheared away,
were rushed into the hospitals.
Some were killed in hospital beds,
and some were shot while on their way.
And some with bodies broken, bent,
with gnawing hunger tearing them,
and maddened by a searing thirst,
carried by a wobbling trudge,
from one "shelter" to the next,
were strafed and killed while on their way.
This gory detail every day,
is filmed and seen by every one,
but no one speaks; the silence stays.
No finger moves to bring a stop,
to bloodletting known long
but seldom has its like been seen.
Just one call by telephone
can bring this carnage to an end.
But this call is not being made,
for the one to make it has,
to first stop supply of bombs,
that have so much slaughter made.
But when this call is made at last,
and civilization by the West
is again once more reclaimed,
then every Congress member should,
to Gaza fly and moonscape scan
which their callousness has made,
and though the pools of blood have gone,
drunk up by the thirst of sand,
let them at least the bodies see,
broken crippled charred and bent,
and trash bags full of body parts
standing in for bodies whole
that cemetries entire fill;
and the 50,000 kids
with missing arms, or legs or both,
who have just nowhere to go,
and yet await a tarnished peace,
and a life of crawling that
will keep them on those rubble heaps
which their elders died to keep,
because these were their homes to them,
where their memories were born
and also life's passions deep.
And though they're only rubble now
yet they want these rubble heaps,
for once these had been their homes,
which now are mere memories,
which is all that's left to them,
so memories to try and keep
they shall go on fighting and
daily they shall go on dying.
Saeed A. Malik.
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