Darfur Down

My Endgame in Darfur post the other week generated quite of few comments on Renegade Eye's blog - some negative, some positive. One of the 'comments' is this poem, Darfur Down, by the man behind the blog, Poetic Justice - Dont burn the flag. Wash it!

Darfur Down

The plains are quiet under the forlorn Sudan

The people wilt like flowers planted beneath the sand

From rape and murder and starvation

Of unfed mouths

Unfed hope

Love

Care

Humanity

Consumed by the Janjaweed

Ravaged by the Baggara

Descendents of grand tribes

Lost

And moving

Down

Roving the sands

And hopeless sun

Stopping only to

Plant gardens

Down

Push the black seed

Down

Into the empty guts

Of Darfur

Down

Again

Darfur

Down

The hunters raid

The rapists thieve

The murderers slay

Lacerating fatality

Down

Upon the child’s teeth

Down

Upon the mother’s bones

Down

Upon the father’s strapped back

Trickling

Down

Oozing

Down

A growing lossInfection

The seeds of genocide

Blooming

Down

Flowering

Down

The zenith of rot

Rising down

Now a wailing

Weeping

Desperate

Sobbing

Fearful

Bawling

Hopeless

Howling

O! Baggara!

O! Janjaweed!

O! America!

O! World!

Tempests of butchery

And burials

Burials don’t rise

Burials don’t sprout up like flowers

Blooming to fragrant air

Burials grow

Down

Descending

Down

Into the dark

Seeking

The deep fetid dwelling

Of hopelessness

Of greed

Of starvation

Of shrieking hell

Of the decomposing stench

Heaving Heaving Heaving

Down Down Down

Swelling upon the child’s lips

Down

Across the mother’s breasts

Down

Through the father’s hands

Down

Over the nation’s love

Down

Upon the world’s hope

Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down
-Stop-

© mrp / thepoetryman

• Reproduced with permission