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Andy Chunn Aug 2022
With soft hushed slip-steps
They creep into my being
My sleepy mind preps
For all the things I’m seeing

They are the sleep sneakers
That invade in the night
Restlessness seekers
That dance without the light

The tales of dreary dreams
Show terror, fear or love
But Sleep sneakers seem
To form fit like a glove

There is no themed story
The meanings are unclear
There’s doubt without glory
Just a gnawing fear

Tonight there in my mind
As I settle in my bed
Those sleep sneakers may find
Dreams hidden in my head
From the ashes and dust
We rise again
Bearing the scars of death
As we count our lost
From the bones and graves around
Many have fallen
And the sword is red

We march through the village square
Bearing more corpses
Looking for a place to rest
From the raging sword of the invaders
We seek the face of the gods

Why do we dance on their graves?
Like masquerades in the village square
The kings come from afar
And we take them to the shrine
The invaders helped us built
And none shed a tear…
None raised a wail…
And none grieved
Because it’s not their lost

They said we wail too much
For the lost was small
A tiny drop in the ocean of blood
That has flooded the land

Our contribution was small…yes, small contribution
Or how else could we justify this ceaseless carnage?
So they took more
More women…more children
More boys…more girls
Some pregnant…some suckling
A sacrifice to make up for the rest

We thought our shrine was big enough
To pacify the gods and save their wrath
But we were wrong
Their white regalia is not red enough
The blood is not deep enough for a swim
But why desire blood as one seeks for water in the desert
Oh sword! When will you rest?

The king is coming
Maybe he will see the mountains of graves
And the waiting dead—candidates for mass burial
Maybe he will say it is enough
And the priest can take the blood
And pour on the altar of the gods
So the living can rest
And the land will know peace
And the sword be no more red
May the gods be pacified
This sacrifice is enough
A reaction to the many killings Fulani Herdsmen in Benue State and the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Government to the situation. And the political pilgrimage that followed afterwards to the site of the mass graves of the victims.
Nigdaw Jul 2020
we have no fins
yet are drawn to the sea
we have no wings
and yet take to the skies
not content to be where
evolution put us
we invade worlds
where we don’t belong
without understanding
the one we were granted
Àŧùl Aug 2019
They exploited our traditions,
Divided us on caste lines,
We never wanted those renditions,
They did the dreadful partitions.

The second one was on the map,
Immediate bloodshed had hap,
People woke up from a nap,
They woke up to a gap.

The repercussions’re not eternal,
Time healed the physical wounds,
They somehow got over with it,
Yeah, we moved on over it.

We can’t forget how Sindh was ours,
How the entire Kashmir was ours,
But that was before they came,
Pouring down the mountains like an evil scourge.
My HP Poem #1764
©Atul Kaushal
Emily Aug 2018
Gray blur in my periphery
Imagination or something real?
Mystery solved within the hour
2nd gray form traveling far

Home no longer sacrosanct refuge
Peace and relaxation a distant concept
Startled shrieks upon their bold forays
Pervasive worry over their next sortie

Fearful defense setting full of trepidation
Will my fingers or their necks be snapped?
Is electrocution—more humane?
Or are they too obese to fit in the tunnel?

How long will this battle perpetuate?
Will the small hordes or large singularity win?
Will peaceful repose ever be possible again?
Or always interrupted by rustling, shrieks, and blurs?
Brent Kincaid Jul 2018
Hut, two, three, four
What do you think you are fighting for?
Four, five, six, seven
Invasion is the path to heaven.
Seven, eight, nine, ten
If it doesn’t work, do it again.
Six, seven, eight, nine
If innocents die too, never mind.

We need to clean things
Wipe lessers out of the place.
They’re a total threat and
Weaken our beloved race.
We don’t have time
For anyone sick or poor
We must go somewhere
And fight unreasonable war.

Helping the weak and sick
Costs too much money to allow.
Besides, there are among us
Suffering rich people right now.
This land owes it all to the rich
So, we must do all we can
To support them with each pitch.

So, hut, two, three, four,
Now you know what we’re fighting for.
Three, four, five, six
Now, none of your liberal tricks.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Don’t question your betters, that’d be great.
Hut, two, three, four
We are who you are fighting for!
Brent Kincaid Jan 2016
Yesterday is much clearer
As the future is drawing nearer.
The histories we have rehearsed
Over time have become reversed.
It should make us very sad;
What was good has become bad.

The bad guys were the Indians
And the good guys Caucasians
And they were always right
Because they were always white.
The Red Man was a villain
Because he was an Indian;
And that was never corrected.
The name an invader selected.

These were people born here
Defending land they held dear
Because they had hunted
And were never really wanted.
The invaders called them savage
Their women okay to ravage
Because they didn’t have Jehovah
To issue them a binding mitzvah.

There were so few invaders
So at first they were persuaders.
But after putting out some feelers
They chose to become stealers.
They declared the natives sinners
And thus became the winners.
The natives hadn’t learned to read
So the invaders ignored all their needs.

The invaders were prepared to fight
To deny the natives their rights
So, the invaders created paper laws
Thus natives couldn’t tell what they saw.
Suddenly the noble savage was a crook.
The invaders gloated over what they took;
Stole native’s possessions from their hands
And declared it all as the invader’s land.

This is the Danes and Angles back when
And the story happened all over again.
But once the battle victory is scored
The native’s birthright is not restored.
The invaders cover up the tragedies
With inaccurate tales and call them history.

— The End —