by SAEED A. MALIK
(Thanks to Asad Zaidi)
A mosque employee prepares the body of Lamiamh Ali, 6. Four siblings were playing outside their home in Baghdad when a U.S. cluster bomb exploded. Two of the children died that day and their brother died later as a result of his injuries. PHOTO taken April 26, 2003, by Stephanie Sinclair/Chicago Tribune/Salon
You promised me
democracy,
but look what you
have done to me.
You robbed my past
and future stole,
and a present
left to me,
crushed beyond
a mending hope.
Ten years before
invading me,
you broke my dams
and bridges bombed,
and power plants,
and sewerage lines,
and water mains,
and the plants
of pesticide,
and baby food,
and medicine,
you destroyed;
and the silos
of my grain
you set aflame.
So I may not
make good my loss
nor repair
my water mains,
you shackled me
in sanctions and,
a million kids
you starved to death.
I lived Saddam’s
nightmare through.
I knew what I
must watch out for.
But now I dont know
where to hide,
for death has lost
its pattern now.
He used to kill
and bury us,
friendless in
our unmarked graves;
but our names
he kept on files.
And now that you
are killing us,
we do not even
have a grave,
nor a number
nor a name–
thus in your books
we’ve never lived.
He was your friend
who hurried us,
so many to their
early deaths,
by weapons that you
sold to him,
while you looked
the other way.
He was not
a ‘tyrant’ then,
which of late
he has become.
You merely changed
the label so,
you could come
and liberate,
the wealth that we
are sitting on,
and this you call
our liberation!
You promised me
democracy,
but look what you
have done to me.
With bombs you won
my heart over,
with blows you changed
my mind.
You tore into
my home at night,
and pulverised
my only peace.
And shrieking as
my mother watched,
with frightened children
gathered in,
you floored my father
in a heap,
with kicks and blows
and rifle butts,
and tore my humble
home apart.
Then you led
our men away,
with tied hands
behind their backs,
and with their eyes
folded blind,
into the endless
prison night.
And there you tore
my father’s robe.
To cover then
his nakedness,
upon his head
you put the hood,
and leashed him like
a dog on show,
and your dogs
unleashed on him.
You promised me
democracy,
but look what you
have done to me.
You took my youth
in prime away–
you shredded wedding
gatherings.
The little joys
that I had left,
merriment in
a broken life,
now in collateral
damage rest,
rising up
in smoke and flame,
of a mindless
bombing run.
‘ Tis peel and husk
I have for food,
and water mixed
with sewerage now
is all I have
to slake my thirst.
You even took
my sand away,
polluted by
uranium dust,
so when I have
my children they
shall be deformed,
unlovely and
unkissable–
and so unlike
your lovely kids!
My millions homeless
roam the road,
and orphaned children
beg in streets.
My women raised
in sanctity,
are now the stuff
of ravishment.
My men are slaughtered
out of hand,
and widows search
the morgues for them.
My dawn is dull,
and dusk is blood,
and bombs and blasts,
my afternoons.
My night in hope-
lessness is sunk,
when peace with me
a refuge takes,
and heaps on me
another dawn–
another search
of bodies lost;
another count
of heaped insults;
another day
to death evade,
call it life,
and celeberate.
So now when I
am fighting back,
my fearlessness
is causing awe.
Unequal,
but unafraid,
when I equal-
-ise myself,
and blow my only
life away,
you are shocked,
and label me
a terrorist!
I who want
my honour lost
and country back–
–a terrorist?
And you who came here
for my oil,
on crutches of
a shameless lie,
are and always
shall remain,
the humanist!
I know your type.
I see your greed
and hunger know,
but it is those
I want to know,
whose vote does so
empower you.
Do they not see
what they have done?
They promised me
democracy,
but look what they
have done to me!