Laid Bare III
The evening brings a taste of metal and burning flesh.
No safe zone. No outlet. No electricity. No fuel. No food.
Drinking water concocts with sewage and the salty sea.
No medicines. Doctors use vinegar as anaesthetic.
The head medic wails and capitulates as his limp mother
And dead looking father are rushed into emergency.
Down the road, a family huddle together in a box room.
Mariam’s hands clasp her pink hijab covering her ears,
Flinching. Flinching as explosions encroach then BOOM.
Adam screams. Imad buries his face in his mother’s chest.
Stunned Mohamed leaps from his chair and wets himself.
Mahmoud turns into a pillar of stone.
Ibrahim the father can’t take any more.
Clutching 18-month-old Anwi he desperately ushers
The family outside into the open-air prison.
The continuing bombardment exploded his head,
Has him shell shocked… but there’s nowhere to go.
The street transformed into a graveyard of rubble.
The closest refuge is jampacked with displaced people,
And they too have spilled into the ghastly streets.
Desperate, he looks up into the dusty heavens:
Is this edible manna falling from the sky? No.
It’s paper slowly cascading to the ground. An edict
From the bolstered King of the north pronouncing:
“رجاءً اهربوا جنوبًا. ستستمر الدمار حتى يتم إنشاء الإمبراطورية الجديدة هذه.”
Read Further: Laid Bare IV: Ancient Prophesy, Epic Conflict and Destiny