THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I had a nightmare last night: a divided human race has been pitted against one another. The reason I can't quite remember, for the war that began had passed a decade and the land was strewn with bleeding drops of red. Vultures circled the dead and dying, bodies of able-bodied men, scattered crimson beads that broke away from a single thread. O, from a single thread! Mothers for their sons with lifeless eyes searching the bloody valley pregnant with the dead, the flame they had kept ablaze lies half-eaten by heartless feathered beings, a sight powerful enough to stop their hearts pounding loud. The ill-fated mothers of little handsome boys who are now fatherless see dogs licking off warm blood from their spouses’ arms that sheltered their family once. Snatching father from son, brother from brother. Why then should there be wars? Whatever the size of the reasons. Whose selfish desire? To conquer or to expand? Are courts the places where abhorrent ideas are sown? Are ministers the venom in the kings’ ears? From where does one get the idea to slaughter one's brother? I felt the earth shaking beneath my legs like a thousand incomplete lives asking why. Could the king hush the rebellion beneath the blood-soaked mud? The rebellion for justice! The rebellion asks why. Why is my wife a widow? Why is my child fatherless? Could the king sleep again? He can only if he chooses to be blind and deaf to his soldiers' living debris. He can sleep peacefully if he has a heart of stone. The child of no tyrant is graced with safety or goodwill. He can only be clothed in the comforts of purple for so long.
Tell me why another war?
Irene, wake up!
It's time!