an orgy of bones and blood is unleashed.

Some are jailed.

Some disappear.

Others are shot.

A common grave as big as the sun has been dug.

And the world is silent.

Over there, in the African Horn,

sick hearts seek relief in the language of bullets.

Bodies are crushed.

And for the zillionth time, a crude fact is confirmed:

flesh and bones are no match for bullets.

That’s the news.

A not so new news.

And the world is silent.

So I get sick.

The bottle and pills make me only sicker.

I write some letters.

Make a few calls.

Tell what happened.

What the cannibals in fatigues did.

Tell about men, women, and children who were bombed in their homes,

and then bombed again as they fled.

‘Til I am sicker than sick,

and can’t tell one death from another.

‘Til I, myself, become a vehicle of death.

It has truly been a year of negation.

The year of death.

And the world is silent. 

Note:
I wrote this poem in reaction to President Barre’s massacre of civilians in the northwestern part of Somalia, in May 27-31, 1988. As a result of Barre’s relentless brutality, this part of the country has seceded from the rest of Somalia, and is now known as The Somaliland Republic.