Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

Futile War

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

March 24, 2003


This is how it begins. The grandiose ideas of cakewalk become the task riddled with bullets and loss of precious lives. Young men and women who are following the orders of their superiors give lives.

Bombarded Baghdad is burning. Abraham whom all the three major monotheistic religions of our time believe as their patriarch or prophet, his supposed birth place the ancient city Ur in modern Iraq is seeing wars of misguided descendents, the destruction and bloodied body littered in the desert and dishonorably shown by warring parties to further their propaganda, perhaps are the reminder what this war really means. Perhaps it may expose the futile fervor of war’s rage and brutality.

Shocked and awed are the world as are the Iraqi civilians and children lying in hospital bed with bloody bandage, listening the booming blasts from the on going destruction of their livelihood. In Iraqi morgues, piles of dead bodies, male, female, babies, witho…

Thousand Widows
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
March 23, 2003


Not with the darkest night or shuddering chill

But the soul or mind traverse the mortal distance

in whapping gallop, over the tempestuous waves of restless sea

deep blue with bubbly foam twinkling in every krill

oozed from watery mouth of dancing seal

in the midst of pounding storm

as if the world is in need of pure reform



The sea is like a mountain with its thunderous waves

swelling in the farthest peak and then dismantling

into flowing waves like melting lava

eviscerated from raging volcanoes

And the screaming wind swinging the aura

of an isolated oxbow or pinnacle reef

in the middle of thousand violent wars

and piercing moan of thousand widows



Not with the bitterest shriek or hovering fright

But the soul or mind traverse the mortal distance

in whapping gallop, over the waves of sand in bombarded desert

dusty white with chunky gnome baffling in every fib

abused from treacherous shout of hellish glib

in the midst of blitzing b…

The Victors’ Monologue

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
March 20, 2003


Glamorous four dimensional extravaganza
Colorful and shining with immense pride
There you see our lambasted victors
Meandering with pompous hide

Winners are we, losers are you
We are the destiny and owners
You are my obedient subjects
Liberty is the days of goners

Believe in my muscle and might
Look at this newly designed arsenal
This one can incinerate disloyalty in nano-second
Oh! How gorgeous! How phenomenal!

We are the victors! Future is ours to shape
Either you are with us or with the losers
With the loyal color transforming gnats
We will take over the world by hammers

It’s hammer time!
Let’s dance and shake
Smile and fake
How sweet the blasting chime!

Freedom and multilateralism are the defeated spooks
The ghost of liberal ideals are heaped in vain
This is the time for neo liberalism fusing conservatives
Let the shower of glory rain

Candlelight Vigils


By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

March 16, 2003


Candlelight vigils and millions of peoples’ unified voices

Ruffling through, and peace dove fluttering its spanned wings over musty air

As if its fleeing is foretold and war is foretold in a predetermined sermon

Serpent’s venom and crushing bulldozer’s demolition of homes and bones

Are all intertwined in the same fashion of predetermination of fate or hold



Aye! The forceful captain is out in shoving force

Dismantling the wings of dove or silencing people’s voices, sweet or hoarse

Are all the game of poker or other musing gambles

Jackpot if you have lucky numbers or be doomed to shambles



They want the world to burn

They want the weak to die or mourn

By the bombarded relative’s skeletons



But the candlelight vigils and millions of peoples’ unity

Not to be reckoned with ceaseless impunity or careless gesture

Thy the endless fabrication and polymerization of organic truth

These are the moment of uncouth frenzy and bamboozled hoot



S…

The Moment of Truth

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
March 16, 2003


This is the moment of truth
Says the leader
As if other moments were nothing
But the false breeder

Azores sees the galore of might
Glittered podiums emit the fright

History hums in the shadow
Wants to tell the story untold
On the streets of America and the world
Peace marchers growing bold

Our muffled humanity crumble
And mumble in the face of war and blood
The battle will bring more misery
And catastrophic refugee flood

The good Pope, Rabbi and Imam tried, as tried Desmond and Mandela
Their cautions and appeals are ignored
The leaders are defiant
“Baghdad must be bombed and deplored”

This is the moment of truth
Says the leader
“Follow us, worship us”
“We are the bigger”

And the peace marchers shout back, “No!”
From the Australian summer to Canadian snow
These are the people of conscience and heart
Facing the might eye to eye and taking apart
All the falsity and concocted fables and myth
With resilient truth and humbling …

War’s Wraths and Devastations
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
March 9, 2003



The mounting oppositions, the growing concerns and voices against the looming war and its calamitous ferocity that will surely kill thousands and thousands of innocent civilians and somebody’s father or mother or brother or sister will be in the zone of danger while fulfilling their superior’s orders in military combat situation wearing American, British or Iraqi uniform, seem to have no apparent effect on Bush’s obsession with Saddam and war.

Real people get killed in the real war. Real widows mourn for their flag wrapped buried husband, and someone’s six-year-old son drops the very real tears while the eleven gun salutes take place for honor and patriotism.

War is the failure of our collective humanity. While the leaders’ sons and daughters are tucked away in pleasant dreams, only the soldiers from the working class are put into forefront of vicious war. With the fervor of constricted patriotism, these soldiers…

Bugle for the Dead

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)


Only the tattering rattle of stuttering guns

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Where is the Imam? Where is the Bishop?

The schoolteacher has fled as well as the nuns

The night sky enlightened by flying missile

And there was churning burning fissile

Whoosh! There goes one more life



The bones are scattered among a puddle

Crawling ants shift through the meaty muddle

The bloody meat and open wounds of the dead

And the dying still groaning from gushing dread



Oh! the laughter of the leaders and charlatans

They are twisting fingers for the sake of peace

From the podium comes gobble hobble chum

Lyrical oration are babbled with ease



Soothing talks to cover the muddle and puddle

Meaty muddle are faraway in the remote desert

Or in the middle of urban warfare among the child

The mothers are blind and fathers are splattered

Their free roaming eyes and meaty muddle

Are shifted through by the crawling ants

The ether propagates the conservative rants



Whew! The blowing up of …

memories of war, an anti war pantoum - A Poem by Caroline Ravenfox

memories of war, an anti war pantoum

By Caroline Ravenfox


memories of war, an anti war pantoum
Wickedness was how the days were fashioned.
We tried to feed the children rain,
because we were shunned
at the market, for our pain.

We tried to feed the children rain.
Rain was scarce in those days.
At the market for our pain,
we were separated, told to go our separate ways.

Rain was scarce in those days,
it was war everywhere, mountains of dying.
We were separated, told to go our separate ways.
always accused of lying.

It was war everywhere, mountains of dying.
Needless to say, the children had hunger,
always accused of lying,
it made you wonder.

Needless to say the children had hunger.
We were starving,
it made you wonder,
the soldiers wouldn't share the meat they were carving.

We all were starving,
there wasn't enough rain to go around,
the soldiers wouldn't share the meat they were carving.
We stepped over the…