Duct Tape

stop thinking like an american; start thinking about the world

DUCT TAPE

"Abdullah Thani Faris al Andzi lost both his legs in a U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan while he was employed as a humanitarian aide worker. After his first leg was amputated, he was arrested by bounty hunters and turned over to U.S. forces. While in custody, his second leg was amputated. He has been held at Guantanamo since 2002, where he has received inadequate medical treatment and often been forced to walk using a prosthetic limb held together only with duct tape."

- from "poems from Guantanamo: the Detainees Speak"

~~~~~

As the bombs rain

they tell us they are for peace.

So I ask them:

Do flowers bloom

or grass grow

held in such chains;

or seeing humans

suffer such pains?

~~~~~

Mountains weep,

and I speak in tear filled oceans,

whose ebb and flow

erode my beach of hope;

all I have left are curses

told in Arabic qasid verses.

~~~~~

As the bombs rain,

ripping apart innocent people's limbs,

they say they are for peace.

And I ask:

will birds fly

and sing their songs,

or will they,

like so many of us,

have only plastic legs

held together with duct tape?

~~redzone 9.23.10

Author's Note

part of the 70 years of "America's world security"...

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

demolitions...to the bodies, and to the minds of those who no longer feel safe.

a very profound, insightful and important write.

jacob

[Frieda P]

This is really an affecting piece, I don't even know what to say here. Dreadful to think of all people suffering due to war and greed and people with no conscience, this is like a hardened lump in the throat, so very sad....really tragic.