Nadaa Hussein
just another war poem
“I refuse to despair because despairing is refusing life. One must keep the faith.” — Aime Cesaire
loss and grief are the most disingenuous words in the English language.
bastardized Indo-European roots
transform and destroy decades
fail to capture a fraction
of the emotional annihilation.
they caused and do cause and will cause
and still.
it does.
what can I say?
the potential seductiveness of language is dangerous[1]
how it eviscerates and self-flagellates,
it’s disgusting, and
I’d bleed to death to write a memorable line.
am I not the quintessential little poet?
take my bones and
make something better out of them.
I can’t keep my faith.
it’s called a war
when it is a slaughter.
what can I say when all that has been, has been torn from me?
say life, and keep the faith
that we will all die in a war over a period and a thimbleful of water?
the bible can be read in a thousand different ways and
there is no neutral, the universal, a farce—
say despair—
I could decimate this language by atom,
can it hold the toll of the rage that lies above the sadness?
the earth still moves.
say, I name it.
there is nothing left.
please.
flex your poetic muscles and feel something true for once.
what was the war poem I wanted to write?
I saw life extinguished, one atom fracturing,
space, it gives. even the air—
it bends—love in
death,
a small mercy.
It’s all terrible.
say life,
one must.
feel something
true.
[1] Bla_K: Essays and Interviews by M. NourbeSe Philip.
