I grab my pencil
everyday

Shaky hands
bring down the lead tip
barely touching the paper
in anticipation
of inspiration

Bombs explode outside  
clouding the sky

I call my muses
to work
but
they fail to clock in
because
the road between
the heart and the mind
has been
bombed

They drop
traumas
like
r
r                                         i
                                           i

                                                              ­                        n
                                       ­                                                n
                                a
                             ­    a

From clouds above,
High and massive
Things are falling
On vast green plains
And dry deserts shaded yellow and orange.
For some, the falling brings smells
Of cleansing and new life,
And fresh new mornings filled with opportunity,
But for others the falling brings only
The stench of destruction
Of environments and lives.

The rain immerses one in a state
Of taking the long cold streaks
For granted, as it’s just another inconvenience
To the already somber day.
Rainbows are dreams
Hidden behind closed eyes
Of those forgotten,
Whose existence consists of turbulence
And tremors.

Resting minds are forced awake
Elsewhere tired eyes stare out windows,
Anxiety filling them both,
As the thunder rolls in ever closer
Until it is at last upon them.
An all encompassing roar
That some believe to be directed by gods,
And some to be brought by man themselves.

As one looks out,
Gazing on the horizon,
The sun lighting the sky in an orange haze,
While the rain, gives off a haze of its own
When it strikes the ground,
Leaving a growing terror
On a face,
As the baleful sound
Steadily approaches,
From the rolling thunder.

April showers conjure memories for some
Of time spent in the comfort of a warm bed
While raindrops pour steadily outside the window
And of running through the grass
As a carefree child
Until a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder
Send them running excitedly to the safety of home
But it’s because of no small privilege
They are able to think this way
Showers are not the same only half a world away

Usually seconds are counted after the sound,
To tell the distance,
But the distance is closed
In an instant,
With the barrage of shells,
And the shock of thousands
As their mouths open wide
With no audible sound
From the crushing wave
Of the falling rain.
Run or hide,
Both choices
Are alike in the outcome,
Only apart by placement.

Across the world a child that’s different,
Only because of where they were born,
Is hiding under covers,
In a country that’s been torn;
The thunder doesn’t scare them
Simply because it’s loud,
But because it’s not lightning that causes the sound
And it came from a drone, not a cloud
While one splashes in puddles happily
Without a care in the world
The other lives with seeing many they know
In pools of their own blood

Rain, oh rain, go away

Did you know that I once wrote you a poem?
Yes, I wrote you a poem! Once.
Carefully choosing words, strategically placing them one after each other,
desperately trying to convey, I don't know what.
I think it was love - so you told me.
I wrote you a poem, didn't you read it?

A friend told me to write about real love.
'Real love', she said. 'Your stories are too melancholy', she said.
I see them as funny, as love can be sometimes.
Wasn't our love funny (sometimes)?
I think it was - so you told me.
Do you know that I once wrote you a poem?

We parted as we started, equally dividing the plants,
the books, the plates, the cutlery and eventually the friends.
We saw each other the day, glancing out the corner of our eyes,
pretending to be elsewhere.
We saw, and passed without one word being spoken. Not one.

Don't you know that I once wrote you another poem?
Yes, I wrote you another poem! Once.
Carefully choosing words, strategically placing them one after each other,
as I wrote about 'real love' - I think.
Yeah, it was real love and, a poem with no words...
...because as with 'real love',
the words were never spoken.

I once wrote you a poem,
didn't you read it?

Tumblin’ Bi-latterial bumbkins
Smirk of untrustworthy salutations
Tribes with terabytes of tirades
Engaged in bipartisan relay races
Delay until faces grimace

They really forced our hands on this one

The fat men falling from heights
False winters
And radiation reproduction
Healing blemishes of backwater beasts
Who’ve grown oh so much since
And now silence for ***** sake

Foreign plants and fibers
No more human hands
to tear and manufacture
For cheap and foreign brands,
Granted,
She won’t care we’re gone,
She’s always been
Will be
Back to a blue blip
Little blue dot
On a mat black background
Grant no sound to the camera
Watching while zooming
Slipping and tumbling
Lonely but still working
Sending pitiful postcards
Of galactic grasses
To a dead receptor
Whose data’s been full for eons
Further and  

Each day

Screams, screeches, groans and wails,
Brutalities, agonies, torture, and blood,
Tear Gases, pallet guns, bullets and bombs
Humanity sobs, world is falling apart

Kids are blinded
Men are jailed
Women are molested
The old are tortured

Luckily, you have food
Billions are starving
You have a warm blanket
Trillions live under the frigid sky

Dreams are murdered
Voices are  unheard
Wishes are being blurred
Every heart has become graveyard

Sweet melodies step down as Sighs take over the throne
Rainbow of Joy is washed by the deluge of tears
Soul of humanity becomes a pray of endless wild Forest of Wars
Even the Sun refuses to rise above the Plumb, snowy mountains

Yet you say world is beautiful??
For you are at peace….
Come out of your palace
You will see….
Sky painting itself red!
Butterflies renouncing their dreams
Birds with trimmed wings
Blood oceans, barren trees, burnt houses,
Teared eyes, and shattered bodies

Earth is ugly
Earth is savage
Earth is a cage
Earth is a jinxed place
                  (Paghunda Zahid)