A place named Darfur swarms with death like moths.



The HyperTexts

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.





Art by Anne R. Kee



Djembe Drum Beat
by Debbie Amirault Camelin

He placed his brown hand over mine
stopped my rhythm-less banging
and pulled the drum away
to cradle in his legs
and caress the taunt skin
of the carved conical drum
comforting it against my assault.

I folded my hands in my lap
the proper lady thing to do
when defeat feels imminent.
I offered, "There is a rhythm in me
but it’s buried deep."
"Very deep", he assured me.

We continued the lesson
left hand gradually grasping the beat
right hand perfectly tone-deaf.







Intimidation
by Debbie Amirault Camelin

Intimidation by definition
can only mean     separation
pits one against the other
encourages retribution
     Mama Africa     she lived the struggle
evaded shadow men     witnessed Apartheid crumble

They confront the white policemen
demand to know why the boy
is being detained     his arm wrenched
behind his back an angled decoy
He is not from here
smirks the cop
though his hand loosens its grip
there’s no intention to stop
dark ladies step forward with looks of indignation
     Mama Africa     heard Freedom’s song
to reconstruct the System     reconcile the wrong

They contradict     the boy
lives down the street     ignore
inference he’s not South Africa
born     their eyes underscore
resolve to cease this interrogation
Stoic     they stand near the squad car
witness fear drain from the boy’s face
he cautiously grasps who the victors are
in this awkward altercation
     Mama Africa     weeps for her children
a vanquished generation     lonely African orphan

The police concede     release the boy
who upright stands a head taller
than the others     rubs his reddened wrist
flexes assaulted arm    adjusts his collar
distancing himself from this humiliation
As the cruiser pulls away     he
bows his head in humble respect
Ngiyabonga    thank you    voice of refugee
in his eyes deep satisfaction
     Mama Africa     allied to the land
marches forever forward     steadfast her stand

"Intimidation" was the winning poem in the 2006 Tom Howard Poetry Contest.







Black Climate of Change
by Zyskandar Jaimot

gone into giant swirling whirlwinds of khamseens
gone into vicious sprawling outbursts of tribal revenge
mothers, babes all bundled together in refuge
mothers calling, praying to strange foreign deities for succor
their voices unheeded in all the world
their DNA gone – vanished amid waves of bloody sand
     never replaced – never thought of – never considered
their DNA unimportant
their DNA inconsequential
their essence gone







Darfur (Jesus Wept)
by William F. DeVault

Half a million dead in Darfur, in the Sudan.
100 times the innocents who died on 9/11.
Children. Women. Men. Genocide.

Wake up and see.
Wake up and see.
Wake up and see why
Jesus wept.

The rains didn't come
the sounds of the drums
the death knell kept.
Jesus wept.

Over the burning sands
the killing commands
of the warlords swept.
Jesus wept.

It should be true
that the evils evil men do
we cannot accept.
Jesus wept.

The slaughter rained on
as in the blistering dawn
the sun, the horizon, leapt.
Jesus wept.

Half a million women and children and sons and daughters
fall to the hate, their fate as wormfood for the slaughters.
Since when are 100 black babies worth less than one white businessman
in the eyes and lies of people who claim to be, to see, without sin?

Wake up and see.
Wake up and see.
Wake up and see why
Jesus wept.

Copyright by William F. DeVault; all rights reserved. You can hear William F. DeVault perform "Darfur (Jesus Wept)" with his band, The Gods of Love, by clicking here.







You Who Read No Calm
by T. Merrill

You, who read no calm reportings
Of alien, distant, dire events,
But shriek and keen as loves go down
Beyond all help, to violence;
Whose temple's walls, stormstruck and split
By sizzling bolts collapse around,
While mid the crash of chaos hope
Whirls in a death-spin to the ground;
You, who alone in deep distress
Cry out for help where there is none,
All you whom I shall never know:
I know a portion nonetheless
Of cruel trials you undergo.

Killers in many guises come:
Sudden as electric shock
Or looming ghostly as a shark
Leisurely finning toward its mark.
I who breathless and sweating once
Wrestled a devil to the floor,
And saw him rise again when he
Finished what he began before,
I who re-learned each childhood prayer
Forgotten, to the stars once more
Send up a poor and hopeless plea
For spirit's peace beyond despair.



Tears of Darfur
by Mahnaz Badihian

O tired land
O depressed sky of Darfur
O plain of no breath
You are bleeding from all corners
Of your dreams
The bosom of your land
Weeps the bitterness of blood
O tearful Darfur,
Can your hungry hands
One day cultivate those
Dry, sad roots, left from
The countless bones
Of your children
Can your simple dreams
Of having a
Loaf of bread and a roof above
Come through?
Maybe,
Maybe one day
Those broken wings
Will heal
With the caressing hands
Of peace
We the people of the world
With our tearful eyes
Waiting on the day that
Acacias will bloom
On the lands where
The dream of innocence pours
On these hopeless days



News From Darfur
by Joseph McDonough

so much depends
upon

a red cross
truck

glistening with sun
shine

beside the white
man



Darfur
by Michael R. Burch

Darfur,
I admit that my heart recoils
from the thought of your agony
as the hammering machine guns
yammer at your ebony
breast.

Darfur,
I am not equal to the task
of your impassioned soliloquy.

Darfur, I am pressed
hard to understand
why men molest
innocence
so violently.

Darfur, I confess–
I have watched you dying
silently.

Darfur, I would bless
you,
if only I knew
how.

Darfur,
I stand helpless,
naked before your indignation
now.

Darfur,
I have only my pen.

Let me wield it like a rapier,
set fire to this paper,

till the world in burning shreds
collapses on our heads

and we see your fate is ours
if we cannot change the course

of this world intent to maim
each man who’s not the "same"

in color and in creed.
And yet the blood you bleed,

as red as mine, demands
that we die holding hands.

O Darfur,
I’ll bleed too
when the ravenous jackals
are through
with you.
 

On the Propensity of the Human Species to Repeat Error
by Christina Pacosz

                  "And if they kill others for being who they are
                   or where they are
                   Is this a law of history
                   or simply, what must change?"
                                                                        --Adrienne Rich

The world is round.
This should tell us
something, this should
have been our first clue
                           what goes around
                           comes around
Scientists are studying
a rent in the roof of sky
over the South Pole
right now but poets
need not adhere
to the caution
of the scientific method.
The message is simple:
                             what goes around
                             comes around
The battery acid of
Plato's Republic
has finally reached
the ozone layer,
a membrane, protective
like skin or an amniotic sac,
permeable and destructible
                              what we take
                              for granted
                              will get us
                              in the end
The Sioux woman's breast
severed from her body
dried into a pouch
for tobacco,
what book was that?
Or a chosen people's skin
stretched across the heavens,
shade for us to more easily
read the harsh lesson
of history.
 

I am a woman
by Sheema Kalbasi with Roger Humes

I am woman
coming from the desert
coming from the long line of tribes
coming from the long line of faiths

They called me mad
They chained me to the wall naked
yet I broke free the bonds
and ran through the pain of my existence
in search of the innocence that was denied me
and they called me mad
and they called me the evil spawn of Satan
yet I broke free the bonds
and ran towards our freedom
where I knelt
before the Mother and the Son
and I called them Salvation
and they named me Nation
and I tore loose the chains of captivity
only to fall once more into bondage
when I was raped by a Mongol
married a Jew
gave birth to a Muslim
watched the child convert to Buddhism
watched the child marry a Bahai
live as a Christian
die as a Hindu

I am a woman
I am the river
I am the sky
I am the clouded covered trees upon the mountain
I am the fertile earth whose song the plants drink deep
I am the long line of tribes
I am the long line of faiths

Don't try to convert me
into something I am not
for I am already all
that humanity will ever be

 

Only a few knew it existed;
No one knew its power;
The world would never be the same again,
Changing irrevocably and forever.
The six-hundred-year history of Hiroshima
Disappeared in the ashes,
On this Judgment Day, on this Morning!

(i)
Blameless souls forever vanish
on this morning, this judgment day.
Our silent cries, to heaven we appeal,
scattered like the ash of withered leaves.
Our ebbing souls
cling to that lonely sky;
we try in vain to escape this sea of flame.
Oh, Hiroshima, once my haven,
why has your life been sacrificed?

(ii)
The abounding sadness within my heart . . .
drowning my loneliness in tears of self-pity.
Four abandoned children;
wishing to feel our mother's love,
just once more;
if only in our dreams.
The heat of yet another long night lingers.
Oh, Hiroshima, once my home,
my tears run dry waiting for the breaking dawn.

(iii)
My soul is torn by this rage inside,
an orphan of war;
why does this make me feel guilty?
Why do my neighbors turn away
or, close their ears when I speak?
Bitterness poisons this innocent child,
I madly waste away.
Oh, Hiroshima, once my cradle,
I am waiting to die.

(iv)
Gathering remnants of my courage,
I stand alone in this notorious America, land of the enemy.
An outcast with slanted eyes,
I fall before the indifference of strangers;
sightlessly, they trample upon my dignity.
This life of anguish seems to be my destiny.
Praying for death, I endure time.
Oh, Hiroshima, once my comfort,
I am lost in dreams of revenge.

(v)
Budding leaves renew this tired place, this tired soul;
gently the rain is embraced by your love,
comforting this savaged heart.
A blade of grass emerges from the ashes,
and my heart becomes a light,
connecting me to heaven.
Living for one another, this is my path!
Oh Hiroshima, forever my love,
may my life become a bridge from you and others.

(vi)
At the dawn of the 21st century,
we honor this passage through darkness.
We must have the courage to enter
the void again . . . and again,
emerging with the gift of new life.
Healing only comes through learning to forgive
and making peace with our past.
Only then, will the wind whisper:
"Hibakusha, you have not lived in vain!"

Crisis (Darfur)
by lungelo mbatha

Won’t you help to sing the song of Bob Marley
If ‘tis all we seem to have!
For how long shall they kill our PEOPLE
Genocide after genocide
Whilst everybody stands and looks …
When shall the Children taste the fruit
From the freedom tree watered at its root
By the blood of our people before us
Oh! What a shame on the ‘body of nations’!
Jumping from left to right, round and round
Wasting time, when ever The Burnt Faces are at the receiving end!
Let that old black fist of AMANDLA rise up high
Now open to make it STOP, to make it STOP!



A Child of the Millennium
by Charles Adés Fishman

He’s five months old now — a little short
on experience — but if he could speak,
Jake would sit with the Dalai Lama on a red
and golden throne and hold forth on happiness
and compassion   on freeing the mind from vengeance
and regret   and living in exile from the sacred home:
he’s seen the end of days . . . and the beginning.

He doesn’t know about race or gender
or that we are murdering the planet   that the earth
is smoldering with underground fires and with the bone-
fires of hatred    He doesn’t know about ethnicity
or religion   and will not take with him into the new century
memories of calcined corpses or an interior landscape
peopled with napalmed children.

What Jake is best at has nothing to do with genocide
or the acid tides of history   He travels in realms
where tenderness is a face that brushes his face
He feels the strength of those around him   and their love
and time ticks at his wrist like the gentlest rain   His eyes
are the most translucent lakes, his smiles tiny suns
that shine a clear light on the living.




Children of The Holocaust
by Joseph McDonough

The perfectly white
cat
sits upon
the lush green lawn

they run     they run
through fields
of sun
calling     calling its name

Ashes     Ashes
falling
like rain

Poets Against the Genocide in Dafur
by Gordon Ramel

          Nobody knows how many people have died during
          the two-year conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region.
          US academic Eric Reeves estimated the death toll at
          340,000 at the beginning of 2005.

          But so far the crisis shows no signs of abating.
          from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3496731.stm

If a poet’s true vocation is to speak
with words so well perfected they remain
as thoughts forever in the hearer’s brain,
then poets are the people we must seek.

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?

Before this day is gone,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, wasted limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?

I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of their souls departing ...
mournful, and distant.

How pitiful our "effort,"
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.