Ghouta: Cultured Vultures, Uncivilized Vampires

Mujeeb Jaihoon’s tribute to the two-year-old boy, Emir al-Bash, martyred in Ghouta, the war-torn suburb of Syria.

Monstrous mortars,
Cold-numbed corpses,
Saharan-dry eyes, and-
Unfashionable funerals

Barada waters turned to blood
Anti-Libanus became dead-mount
A furnace of hell-like pain
Ghouta has no uncommitted sin

Men and women here
Simply shields and targets
For, Rulers and Rebels
See not their souls

A lot so besieged
Their chastity betrayed
By the entire world-
Ignobly Ignored

Saw I there
A woman in black
Carrying a wrapped bag
In blue bold
A slaughtered hunt
Maybe it, I thought
Little relief had she made
In this draught

Asked I,

‘What do you carry in that bag-
A lamb maybe or a deer of hunt?’

Replied She,

Not lamb nor deer is this
My son’s remains but is this

He lived to see just years two
Martyred by then sans a clue

Left home we
In search of food
Lest we find in market
A bite good

Wells here have gone dry
Olives here ooze mere blood

He cried and cried to feed
A mortar but struck him bleed

His soul to the Heaven flew unfed
To be a Mother called am I ashamed

For the Lord have no plea else
But to feed my child in Heavens
Angels be his playmates
Rivers be his in his parks

In this land of curse and chaos
Where insanity dances in streets

Vultures maybe of some culture
Not so its vampire-vying tyrants

Hitler and Genghis be shocked
At our onlookers inanimate gaze

This beleaguered league
Of bystanders
United, but, with
The beads of discord

Angel of Death may not have had
A welcoming crowd as ours:
Who Tirelessly host
His Death feast’

March 01 2018. Edit Sep 2024