(Black Rose of Halfeti, Turkey)
My heart is heavy today. It has been for a while. Not because of an unfortunate development in my life, or in the lives of my family and friends. It is due rather to an ongoing accumulation inside that red ticking box of mine of the terrifying news from South Sudan, Chibok, Nigeria, Lahore, Pakistan, Southern Asia, Africa at large, Latin America, the Caribbean, Turkey, Germany and the United States. Coming to terms with the extent of violence that has occurred and keep occurring hasn’t been possible for me this time. Then again, I often get this way: become non-functional, if I let too much sorrow from around me seep through me. This time, I had to let it bleed to a poem attempt.
what’s the matter with the world today?
it is not one sweetest Malala only to feel forlorn
nor a love-filled Farzana helpless outside her unborn
the countless still remaining ageless nameless and faceless
halved alive after witnessing butchery of their newborns
or etched to the bones with their hunters so sadistic
their supplies had mercy to end it all at last
i think of
schools
babies
scorched dispensable innocents in sky-high districts
in routine safe A to B B to A making-a-living-transits
walking explosives under modesty cloaks in pregnancy disguise
the piloting sons their heroes they may not even a second despise
for mauling to their stone-aged lairs more and more younger child brides
i think of
schools
babies
papas selling infant daughters
mamas in silence guilty standing by
brothers uncles nephews proud to lend a capable hand
a bowed head from in-lawed blood-seekers no longer a demand
sisters aunts nieces even if at all around
don’t dare or care anymore to disband
i think of
schools
babies
hülya n yılmaz – June 28, 2014
hülyaswritings 