Hey give me a hand
Hey please give me a hand
Have mercy on me, at least
Give me something just to eat
I have been hungry for over a year
Don't you all have His fear
Don't you see I am all bones
The flesh eaten away by war & drones
There is no roof over my head
Only mother Earth my all time bed
The bullets & shells took away all
Until I couldn't stand the fall
I am feeble & can not move
This hunger has eaten even my torso
While the World watches me die
How will it face the Creator with its lie
For I will not forgive you on that day
When I will stand tall on the Judgement day.

(Khan, BA)

you know how brittle and thin
the bones of a fried chicken look
after you have bit them bare
and licked them clean
imagine bones like that
bulging beneath the skin
of a seven-year-old girl
who is only still alive because she
unlike forty of her brothers and sisters
was not on the school bus
destroyed the other day
by an expensive star-spangled bomb

her lips look like
they haven’t laughed in years
her skin lame as waxpaper
what might have glowed once
in the bright of Yemen’s sun
is left instead to sag in agony
from those sinless unfed bones

while she goes to sleep
for the final time
a tycoon somewhere
eats well and rests easy
on the dollars that bought
the bombs
not really knowing
the price that has been paid

Guns are all now silent,
The killings all been done,
The boys are coming home,
The war’s ended, but not for some,

The war to end all wars ended,
One hundred years ago,
The killings started over again,
No poppies in the meadow,

Civil war in Yemen,
The Saudis and Iran,
Russia starts an arms race,
Trump’s wall building plan,

Caravan from Honduras,
Fleeing death and repulsion,
Troops at the Mexican border,
With guns and no discussion,

Mothers fears and lovers tears,
Of family they’ll never see again,
Shootings at schools and bars,
Talk of gun control all in vain.