My silent expressions
underneath these merciless skies,
Eyes, steadfast in their shock
and smiles of wonder at the unknown you carry
in your pale Western hands...
Eyes, fixated on a camera lens
staring at your expectations of my surrendering a story,
and yet nothing comes.
But the blood on the street tells it
and the bodies torn apart,
struggling to release their inner selves...
Their faces, expressionless...
Friends of enemies,
strangers with elongated machines
balanced on strong shoulders...
Maybe you will tell the world at large
my silent story.
My silent horror witnessed,
faster than the speed of light through your camera lens,
stripping me of all sense.
Senseless now I am.
That half erect house you see
had a kitchen.
The meat on the charred table... is my brother…
The hallows of my father’s car over there
had known fine days of sun on the way to school.
He’d puff a smile through the rearview mirror at my eager eyes
above dog-eared books…
The smoke you see now
through the remains of its structure
is only because…
those skies up there will only talk war.
That infant in the swaddle
could not talk either,
when your guns did the words for his small aspirations…
You tore my brothers limbs to shreds
his rarest fetal nightmares never told him…
But I...I can still struggle in the face of your camera
and try to tell you my story.
You see you had smiled,
and in my culture I must smile back...
Even if you intend to kill me with that long gun…
You...like to call a camera...
