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Darfur Down

Western policy is in near despair over Darfur, and governments are turning to Russia and China to see if they can put pressure on the Sudanese government to accept a UN peacekeeping force.

"There is a critical period now when the whole
international community has to use its influence on Sudan,"
the British Minister for Africa Lord Triesman told reporters.

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 loss
Infection
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-


Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
A Nation Divided
Annan Warns Sudan
Reclaiming the past
Darfur's doomed peacekeeping mission
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