Afghanicide

I read this on Friday night at the bellaBookafe poetry night:

Afghanicide

Copyright © Pip Wilson, 2001

Since many a month we’ve heard not of uncle
and cousin who walked to the Pakistan side.
They said they would get on a boat for Australia
where people are good and will listen their cry.

Our cousin and uncle left home in the summer
when the last pound of rice was our food for a week,
before we ate bark and before we ate grasses
they went to Australia to be refugee.

Our cousin and uncle were gone when the big planes
scared us away from our village so cursed.
Oh can it be that our uncle to calm us
promised that life could not get any worse?

Goodbye Homayoon, take care of Aziza,
protect my small sisters, Miriam and Farida.
I will send you ten dollar for food for the winter
when I get to Australia and be refugee.

But some say the boats cannot make for the sailing,
and some say Australia will push them to sea.
And some say that uncle and cousin be drownded.
And some say you never hear from refugee.

Let go of my shirt, do not cry my Farida,
I will walk only night through the mountain and snow.
And insh’allah Taliban will never catch me,
and insh’allah God will care me as I go.

We should happy the river three years without water,
the bridge the big planes will never be bomb.
Eight days I will get to Peshawar, my brother.
I will rich in Australia and send money home.

Goodbye Homayoon, take care of Aziza,
protect my small sisters, Miriam and Farida.
I will send you ten dollar for food for the winter
when I get to Australia and be refugee.

And rice will be yours for to eat when I get home
with one hundred dollar and we’ll eat boulani.
And one day America will catch the bad Arab
who bombed California, and we will be free.

Goodbye Homayoon, take care of Aziza,
protect my small sisters, Miriam and Farida.
I will send you ten dollar for food for the winter
when I get to Australia and be refugee.

Categories: afghanistan, poetry, war-on-terror