Inssein

While the sky burned with red

And the air smelled like birthdays
I saw him there on the ground.
Not living, not dying
Not laughing, not crying,
Not blinking, not making a sound.

They say he stepped on a mine,

Blew away half his body
In agony, out of his mind.
They tell him the story,
Expect him to see,
But how can he with eyes that are blind.
 

Perhaps he had dreams

Which will never come true
As he wished on another man’s star.
While in passion and pain
They think he’ll run away –
But with only one leg, he won’t run far.

 

Desert Soldiers

Amongst their cries for peace,

The shadow in your eyes;
Our sons and brothers fight
The war in foreign skies.

Trying to smile while wives are crying

They know what they must do –
Frightened of failing and frightened of dying,
The new breed of the ‘the few’.

How much future they will have

Is not within our hands,
And we should willingly support
The brave crusaders of the sands.

The sun will not let poppies grow

Within the sand they trod,
While you crawl humbly on your knees
And turn your prayers to God.

Thursday

There are children in the distance

Laughing their youth away,
Their noise being drowned by the radio –
War began today.

But I couldn’t hear the bombs falling,

Did not see their path of pain.
All I could know was the man on the news
And the face of Saddam Hussein.

The ‘untouched’ protest for peace

And are quite within their right.
But what can you do when it’s gone this far
Except give the order to fight.

Sometimes a person can suffer,

Not knowing the cause of their pain.
Some people say that they’ve been to heaven –
And never been there again.

And life flickers out in an instant

Like a burst of flame in the sky.
It’s man against man, not right against wrong,
And who has the right to die.

It can’t be brought home to us

Who’ve never been to the place,
Nor killed a man on mutual ground
And felt his last breath in your face.

But we have to continue with life

And hope that our boys will pull through
While we engrave on each bullet the heartfelt message
‘Saddam, this one’s for you’.