SELECTED POETRY

by
Salman Shaheen

PAKI IN THE MIDDLE

I watch as Boeing meets building, twin towers reduced to rubble,
And see the hatred in their hearts, they call me to Jihad;
"Allah calls upon you, Child of the East,
Come shed the blood of Infidels, our martyr, semtex-clad!"
I see a nation ripped asunder, the Arab people blown apart,
By the bombs of truth and justice, freedom's flag unfurled;
"Liberty calls upon you, Child of the West,
Come kill for democracy, let oil drown the world!"
And while both sides hold their heroes, their honoured fallen dead,
I play piggy in the middle, as the bombs fly overhead.

Upon what battlefield can it be, that civilisations clash?
Not Washington or Fallujah, nor New York or Baghdad;
But the blood within my body, there a war is fought,
Come East, come West, my heart hangs heavy, for a world turned mad.
And I shout from the highest rooftops, to the streets of London town,
For with their bitter hatreds, both sides have it wrong;
But when they will not listen, to a call for peace and change,
What for the blood within me, where do I belong?
Now nothing is black, nothing is white, all runs, it seems, to red,
While I play piggy in the middle, as the bombs fly overhead,
Just a Paki in the middle, as my people's blood is shed.

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THE HIGHWAY

Manufactured faces, factory-line expressions, cast
Their gazes, averting eyes from strangers,
Transfer money, gulp their cups of caffeine,
Back to work. Cycle repeat.
It’s the modern way.

But from Avebury down to Glastonbury,
On the turnpikes and in the fields,
From the festivals and all-night raves, to the circles
At the stones; they looked for another life -
Stuck two fingers up to Starbucks,
And chose, not your way, but the highway!

Now you criminalize communities, travellers
Ain’t welcome, beat them on the Beanfield,
Tell us property’s not theft; well
Why do I feel robbed?
Criminal Justice? Where’s the justice?
Justice for the criminals in the Commons,
And your coffee-house bourgeoisie -
Is it a crime to want to LIVE?

I see the way you live -
Manufactured faces, factory-line expressions;
Imagination cannot be moulded!
Avert your eyes from strangers,
You stand alone.
Transfer money, capitalism running on coffee,
Your stock exchanges spin in circles,
I’m getting dizzy -
Let me off!
LET ME LIVE!

I’ll take the highway

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A ROCK OF AGES

You can bury your head in books,
Or strongly held convictions,
Politics and philosophy,
Parties, protests and conventions;
But what is it for
If they’re just sand?
A rock to the world outside,
But of ages, turning to dust;
Fragile and insular,
Building barriers
To hide away the pain
Not marked upon this unblemished flesh
By any razor visible to the eye;
Yet festering with outward vanity.
When the mirror before you is a portrait,
Of Dorian Gray
With a Midas touch,
But all that glitters is not gold;
One must learn to love again,
Pull down those graffitied walls
And barbed wire fences,
Open your heart to all around
And paint a bigger picture.
There is beauty,
To love the world
Again.

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OF A BROKEN HOME

For Hudda Fawzi Salam Issawi, and all those like her, of a broken home...

She walked the dirt-trodden road alone,
Who else would follow where she wandered now?
Her heart was laden, heavy as the cargo
About her waist.
Grief, despair, sorrow, bitterness, love-lost contempt.
Rage!
A childhood in a broken home,
Ten years behind her,
Now little more than rubble,
A haze-filled memory;
Footnote to a page in history.

Fallujah.

A bomber passed above her, history marched on,
And she, but a pebble to its tide, moved with it.
Her mind in shackles, she bore the key
About her waist.
Pain, fury, mourning, emptiness to passion-fuelled vitriol.
Revenge!
For a father shot at his door,
Sister - beaten - murdered;
As she lay hidden,
In a broken home.

She cried as she reached the checkpoint,
Where the soldiers turned their guns towards her.
But she shed no tears for a family lost.
Her adoptive parents - hatred and fear,
And she, their child, cried -
”Allahu akbar!”
She pulled the cord
About her waist,
As though it were a light-switch.
She switched off her light with semtex,
And her memory
Of a broken home
In Fallujah.

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MAN'S EARTH

I feel it in the ground so cold,
I sense it in the rivers old,
I smell the air and choke;
For her song has ceased,
Her colours faded and there is
No voice left, for the songbird flying.
The Earth is slowly dying.

I stand in empty streets so wide,
I know now why the cities died;
I hear no voices on the wind
For there’s no sun in the sky,
Their cold constructs crumbled and there is
No love left, for the child crying.
Mankind is slowly dying.

---

EARTH'S MAN

I own the trees so I cut them down,
To build my house on fields brown.
I own the fields so I plough them dry,
To plant my crops beneath the sky.
I own the sky, I care not if life there withers,
For yet I have my ancient rivers.
I own the waters; I may poison them at will,
And fish them barren, I have the forests still.

But the last tree has fallen, just desert sand,
A home without a garden, no beautiful land.
The fields are barren, no crops will grow,
Though my hunger grows, of that I know.
And there is no air left to breathe, no breath left in me,
The rivers run dry, for rain I make plea.
Dying here, I see, I cannot own the place of my birth,
It does not belong to me; I belong to the Earth.

---

PEACE ONE DAY

This poem is dedicated to the Peace One Day campaign, launched by film maker Jeremy Gilley in 1999. The campaign, which has won support from Nobel Peace Laureates, artists, musicians, religious and political leaders and millions of people around the world aimed to make September 21st an International Day of Peace, an annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence. Officially recognised by the UN General Assembly in 2001, the campaign’s most important task has only just begun to let the world know!


From the West Bank to East Berlin,
Hiroshima to Ho-Chi-Minh,
From the Boer War to East Timor,
Kosovo to Alamo -
Hear the victims cry in pain,
Turn the page, another stain
History book’s been written red,
Another people, broken - bled,
Another chance for peace
Dead,
Dead.

From Ypres fields to Stalingrad,
Falklands to the old Yugoslav,
From Afghanistan to Sudan,
North Korea to Chechnya,
Watch the poppies, trodden to mud,
See the Tigris, run with blood.
Another war begins to rage,
Don’t be quick to turn the page.
Change must come, come what may,
Together we’ll look for another way,
Together we’ll make peace,
Peace One Day.
Peace One Day!

---

THE REAPER'S HARVEST

With blinkered eyes I cast my gaze,
Across a field sown with uttered lies;
Watered with the tears of an innocence lost
To the caterpillar tracks that heave the plough
Of obscured intentions, beneath the mourning haze.
My blood turns black!
Once red, it seeps now into the sands
Of empires long since passed
To time’s embrace, where I, face down, now follow.
New empires rise above me,
My blood is black, crude and sold;
A bitter liquor, sweetened by soft words
Of freedom’s fallacy for which I fought.
Oil-seed war, a field sown,
A harvest reaped, my body prone,
The world turns black.

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WHY I WRITE:

I’ve always written. From the moment I could pick up a pen I’ve put it to page. Writing is in the blood for me. My grandmother, Mumtaz Shirin, was a popular short story writer in Pakistan, and though she died long before I was born, I have certainly inherited her passion for crafting words. Some of my earliest memories are of writing short stories on scraps of paper in great scrawling unintelligible letters. My earliest influences came from Tolkien’s fantasy world, which I often tried to emulate in my own scribblings. Eventually, by the age of twelve, I had a go at inventing my own fantasy world in a short novel. Since then I’ve tried my hand at writing a number of novels. Though I’ve never sent any manuscripts off to publishers, it has never mattered, because writing, to me, is a labour of love. With each project I feel I’ve grown, experimented with new styles, improved my writing, and above all, had fun! I’m currently working with an idea for a new novel, in between my studies, and this one I hope to finally send away to try my luck with publication. More recently my love of writing has come to be entwined with my passion for politics. Not old men in grey suits, but injustice, idealism, anger, protest, hope and peace. I write regularly for the Socialist Unity Network, and have written articles for the Weekly Worker and Red Pepper. Much of my poetry, which I’ve had published in various small magazines, local papers, anthologies, e-zines, and websites, reflects this voice of protest, and perhaps those of some of my more recent influences, from Blake, through Owen and Sassoon, to Benjamin Zephaniah. But above all I write to find my own voice, my own little corner of the world and my own way, however small, of making a difference. If you have any comments or critique, please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you!

salman_shaheen84@hotmail.com

© Salman Shaheen
Reproduced with permission

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