Shelter
A place giving temporary protection from
bad weather or danger
But you don’t hear your siblings cry at night
When they’re hiding under bombshells holding each other so tight
As the lucky ones fertilise the ground they used to walk on
Others put their hands up and wish they’d just be gone
The next door neighbour, her brother and son
Pressed up against the wall
their temples on the gun
The lines on their palms read legends of old
As their sacred homelands story is told
Between rubble, shrapnel and baby’s shoes
‘The Muslims strike again’, declares Fox News
The pages bound together with pain and oppression
And you wonder why 300 million people
suffer from depression?
Red congealed meanders between every other chapter
It’s funny
I though death was just a famous
Paid actor
You see
It’s easy to ignore the pain and the anger
When every year there’s another better iPhone camera
China’s largest panda
Government propaganda
How many stanzas
Should it take until
Our contusions
and fusions of
injustice
illusions
And midnight intrusions into
Innocent
Palestinian homes
Come to an end
Where’s the revolution?
our voices?
When will they be heard?
Shouldn’t take a genius or a
mathematical nerd
To work out the formula for peace and freedom
Isn’t going to come from us sitting down and weeping no
So please
I beg
Let your voice be heard
It’s the only thing you have left
Said a little bird
When flying over the border
Between Mexico and the states
witnessing thousands of infants
Being treated like inmates
their hope is a star
a million light years away
Let’s not forget the flames
On the 14th of June
Fuelled by profit margins
Now that’s quite the tune
Said the journalist to his friend
When writing about the news as
Grenfell burned to ashes
Picture frames and nike shoes
But nothing is more deafening
Than death; it’s silence
The wispy crispy remains of
natural political violence
If I didn’t have faith
I would say the end is near
I mean
why wouldn’t I? When
half the world is in fear
Fear of becoming a by-product of society
Fear of shedding a tear
Fear of being forced to cement books between walls for
Hundreds and thousands of years
And now as the days go by
I find it harder and harder to say
That all I can ever truly do
Is kneel down and pray
So put your hands up
Palms facing the sky
To the Rahman
The Raheem
Maliki yawm al deen
For only He truly knows
The pain their eyes have seen
Ya Rabbi please protect us
From the evil and unseen
And always try to keep us on
Alsirat’ul mustakeem
Ameen
