The Gaza conflict! A lot of lives have been compromised over the past years to accommodate the greed and inhumanity of the Israelis . This poem personifies the feelings of a boy, born into this mayhem .

Waking up to the sound of gunshots ,

Putting myself to sleep listening to sorrowful cries,

Dreams that contained hopeful thoughts,

To reality, too late to realise, they were just propitious lies...

Clear blue skies were forgotten,

Smoke and missiles fill them now...

Schemes and tactics misbegotten,

Yet we will not bow...

My sisters humiliated, raped

And ripped off their aspirations

My brothers beaten, bruised

And pulled away from their determination..

They say , “Sometimes ,you cant have what you want ,

But in Palestine, You cant have what you want, even though it is yours....

People of the world, blinded

By your greed and hypocrisy,

Deafened by the sounds of your diligent life...

And desensitized by your priorities...

The world that I knew and heard of, has changed a lot,

Everything that was mine is now gone...

But we don’t know what is fair, neither do we feel fear..

Maybe thats what has kept my people going, to persevere

FEAR,

Can lead to a lot of wrong decisions,

DECISIONS

Should be made by a conscious mind

A MIND

Is always attenuated by pain

AND PAIN,

Unlike any other feeling, is justifiable, irrespective of your CONSCIOUSNESS !!

But rage is not the answer to our pain... Rage is never the answer..

Rage and sorrow, mysterious feelings they are,

What hits you first can make a lot of difference.

Rage can only lead to sorrow

And sorrow may lead to rage..

But once you’ve felt sorrow first and then rage ..

You ought to be smart and stop the cycle from resuming..

They say the life that you’re living was already written,

Oh i wonder what the moral of our tales will be..

Glasses shattered from yesterdays cataclysm,

Just like my dreams, still able to reflect light, but deficient...

With every step

That i take,

I remind myself of the depth,

I’ve seen souls that have eloped from bodies that have tasted death..

I’ve seen tears rolling down bleeding faces of those having nothing left..

Every tear will count that day,

The ocean of tears, cried

The sea of blood, spilled

United by patience and faith,

When we can see the other side of our dreams, fulfilled

Oh yes this is the wrath

That you’ve brought upon yourselves..

Seeds of the martyrs,

Be brave,

This is your purpose,

Take what is yours, take what your parents lost,

Because they were outnumbered, outcaste-d and ignored..

The light at the end of the tunnel is bright..

Yes, it is there and it is perennial..

This is not revenge, nor payback,

Just a small change in the normal, sort of a hack

Take what is yours,

It was never theirs,

Its your land , your fortress,

Let the whole world stop and stare !!!

Naseem Ashraf Vaakath ex Bhavanite.