Sunday Poetry: Yousaf Mukhtar

15 Minutes on the News

15 minutes on the news
devoted to a 'crisis'
of great magnitude.

We hear, watch
But do we listen, see
and will we feel
their new found freedom

as the bombs drop around them?
as the fear surrounds them?
as the F16s hound them?
all the bloodshed about them?
all the killing, murder, death besieging them?

Heartlessly
we turn away,
resume with our lives
lifelessly.
After all
we are dead inside.

Mute/silent witnesses,
To a crime
Where innocence dies.
Every day
The fresh blood of children screams out
replacing their voices
Every day
A piece of our hearts rot away
every day

Are we deaf
to a child or a mother's cry?
Ask yourself why?

The collateral damage of Qana
Precision targeting
Of defenceless women and children
massacred
as we, the whole of mankind
watch on
muted voices,
while the stench of the burnt flesh
of children covers us.

Why do the children have to die?
Ask yourself why?

15 minutes on the news
generations of destruction
Turn the channel over
we have seen enough


Yousaf Mukhtar,
3rd year medical student

(Published at War Poetry.)