The Sweeper (a poem on war in Somali, with commentary)

The Sweeper
(A poem, on war in Somali)


I’m Tired of man’s wars
Tired of this world’s Leaders
I stand facing blood crushed limbs
Of those I once knew as friends,
In Somali’s dark city
Where the Butchers Plague
Has come, to stay, and I must die.

Here, I became part of the dead:
I harbor no delusions.

I once listen to the sounds of fish,
Even of jumping frogs, in ponds.
I could fall to sleep at secluded waterfalls
In Venezuela’s, Gran Sabena,
Listen to its shroud’ like veils
Of pouring water…!

It’s what I gave up, sadly gave up,
And weep as I write this poem
Torn from my shell, I am one of those limbs
The sweeper is sweeping up right now,
Off the streets of a Somali port city,
If only I could have,
Seen another autumn also…!

#2472 8-23-2008


Note: There has been a three day battle, or war, part of an ongoing war, a period in Somali, where people have been dying like flies, and it will soon be tucked away, in the writings of time, perhaps brought to surface now and then down the road of life, but for the most part forgotten. Eighty-nine-people died, and over two hundred wounded: mostly civilians, body parts stinking up the city’s streets. When you are in war is one thing, one shoots out of a plane, or from a distance he sends rockets your way, or the armor comes in, and shoots it shells. Lives are taken in the name of war, and progress, and all such silly things. And the insurgents, be it Ethiopian or Islamic, or Somalia’s citizens in its capital, nobody, nowadays, sees the dying much anymore, until they are dead. Facing death, the death you bring on in war, puts the warrior in a deep freeze, you don’t see, hear what you are killing, you just kill the enemy, whomever they are, and for whatever they’ve don. From the looks of things the Somali city Kismayo is an open air, graveyard, where limbs and body parts are likened to an unkempt butcher’s shop, or market place.
I say to myself, and I have been in war, “I don’t want to die in some bloody city, in somebody’s backyard, because someone, somewhere shot a anti-aircraft gun, and shot my legs off, then my arms, and he doesn’t know me, nor I him, and he will sleep well tonight because the shock part of seeing the dead you killed is nullified. Now comes the bullet to my head because someone a mile away decided to press some buttons. Or someone fifty-miles away wants to have a personal, not with the people he will kill in the city, he will simply just kill them for fun, if they get in the war, but war to rule over people who they want to control.”
Control is power, and nowadays, the new philosophy, or so it seems to be, is not so much to be rich, than to be in control of those around you. And should a ruler not be, then he will kill and destroy everything, something the USA does not understand, that being, the rulers of today, do not care if you starve their control, as long as they control, because they will eat anyways, and blame the rest of the word for their countries woes. If they can’t control it, they will destroy it. Again I say, it is a different kind of a bird that rules nowadays, more on the peacock order.