مساجد قتل گاہیں بن گئ ہیں، مدارس نفرتوں کے آستانے
وفا و پیار کی دو چار نظمیں، جفا و ظلم کے لاکھوں فسانے
تمہیں کتنا لہو درکار ہے اور، تمہیں کتنے دریدہ جسم چاہیئں
ہاں لاو ظلم کی جھوٹی حدیثیں ہمارے قتل کے رنگیں بہانے
اگر کچھ اور حاجت ہے لہو کی تو آو اے سگانِ بربریت
کہ ہم نے وا کیے درہائے ہستی منور کر دیئے اپنے ٹھکانے
جہاں بھی اس شبِ ظلمت میں دیکھو روشنی واں ھم کھڑے ہیں
تبسم بر لباں، شانہ بشانہ، چار سو ہاں ھم کھڑے ہیں!
I wrote this poem on the invasion of Gaza in 2008-9. Sadly, things have not changed much since then.
Walking Home (on 2008-9 Invasion of Gaza)
Like three dolls in a toy bed
One girl, two little boys
With peaceful faces, eyes closed
No wounds, no blood—a clean death
The girl, a smile etched on her face
Dreaming, probably, of a better place
The boys, holding hands, unsmiling
Like guardian angels walking their sister home:
Through bombed streets of the walled city
Jumping over trash, avoiding piss and blood
Through ranks of soldiers, columns of tanks
Breathing gunpowder, smoke, phosphorous
Carrying their sister across the wall
To a city of light, cafes, and pristine streets
They stop in front of a candy store
Silent, hopeful, cautious, a bit afraid
Then one of them, the one in blue jeans
A white t-shirt and a black baseball hat,
Enters, after wiping his feet on the door mat
In his stretched hand a Jordanian coin
Found in a dusty Gaza street, right
By the deserted, defunct Bus stop.
Sir, he says to the man in the candy store
Sir, my sister would like an orange drop
A Catalog of my Silences
This is a catalog of my silence
A record of words unsaid
Of failed guarantees, muted testimonies
Of going on, despite the calls of the dead.
The Afghan dead–in thousands
The raped and tortured bodies of Bosnia
Of young girls plucked from schools
Latter day concubines under ancient rites.
And of Gaza!
Yes, Gaza–the last concentration camp!
Yes, we should have the guts to name it so.
A walled city–with twenty-four feet tall concrete walls
And two closely guarded gates.
And YOU call this wall a fence!
Such elegant bullshit.
Like calling camel turd, mangoes.
Yes this is a record of my silences
A catalog of my complicities
and of my bourgeois cowardice.
For not speaking the truth
For not SHOUTING!
YOU are not victims any more
YOU with tanks, guns, and warships
YOU are murderers enabled by us
To slowly kill an inconvenient people.
To possess their land
In the name of a history of victimhood!
I shall say no more.
Your actions disgust me!
And your rationalizations are just a pack of shit.
And shit can never be mangoes!