We live in troubled times. There are approximately 65 million displaced people who are fleeing their homelands either because their country is in conflict or because they face persecution or are poverty stricken. The 19th of June is observed as World Refugee Day.
This poem originally appeared in the online portal Different Truths.
The monster roars
Dropping shells
I now know what shell-shocked is –
Shell shocked is to lose a neighborhood
Friends, familiarity
In one stroke
To have history erased
In one stroke
Shell shock is red paint splayed on a domestic scene
Rough hearts wipe my canvas clean
Streets become rivers
Ferrying the dead and the living
I desperately pray for a branch, a log, a twig
To anchor me to my land
Death drops its mantle on the fortuitous
Hope gathers up the dammed in his folds
Oh! This foolish hope
Oh! This foolish wish to live
Riding a wispy fate I flee
I run for days
And drift over seas
I had a job, a routine
I had hopes I had dreams
All in an another life
Now I am a cell in a mass of surging humanity
A nameless hopeless spectre
Without an identity
I am a rudderless refugee
Will I ever wrest back my dignity?
This poem originally appeared in the online portal Different Truths.
Adrift
The monster roars
Dropping shells
I now know what shell-shocked is –
Shell shocked is to lose a neighborhood
Friends, familiarity
In one stroke
To have history erased
In one stroke
Shell shock is red paint splayed on a domestic scene
Rough hearts wipe my canvas clean
Ferrying the dead and the living
I desperately pray for a branch, a log, a twig
To anchor me to my land
Death drops its mantle on the fortuitous
Hope gathers up the dammed in his folds
Oh! This foolish hope
Oh! This foolish wish to live
Riding a wispy fate I flee
I run for days
And drift over seas
I had a job, a routine
I had hopes I had dreams
All in an another life
Now I am a cell in a mass of surging humanity
A nameless hopeless spectre
Without an identity
I am a rudderless refugee
Will I ever wrest back my dignity?
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