Depth Of Destruction

Photo Courtesy: ICRC

The rivers of Babylon
Run crimson red
Like great drops of blood
Its people lay on its bed
Yielded, dotting and dead
Along River Tigris
Landscapes stir a dark reminisce
Howls trapped in the wind
Bell out like tortured screams
Of ghosts that won't lie still
Silence haunts
The hollows of desolation
Like phantoms
The voice of melody
Is run into the ground
By shrapnels of tragedy
That cut children down
The denizens are ghosts
Whose story is told
Around campfires
And such storytellers
Are labeled liars
Authors of well-crafted fables
The Province of Mosul
Is trapped inside a time capsule
Stuck in a tunnel somewhere
In a rocky past
Its gear locked on reverse
It's become a monumental
Outdoor museum of antiquities
Four years on
Still a symbol of calamities
Its clock since stopped work
The wheels are ungreased
All the scribes moved on
The pages are torn out
The coat turned down
No resolution can be found
It was never penned
Not in the now
Not back when.
Akpan