Prose Poetry for Syria

Prose Poetry for Syria
By Kwesi Atta Sakyi 06/11/16

Syria! Syria!
Syria cries aloud to the world-
Her cries subdued by bombs, cataclysm, and woes,
Syria, land of ancient Phoenicia, Tyre, and Sidon,
Land of date palm, cedar, sycamore, figs and olives,
Now lies
Dated
Gated
Sedated
And jaded!

Ancient land of urns and Damask carpets,
Now carpeted to the ground by hailstorm
Of fiendish blasting bumbling bombs,
The world feasts and banquets unconcerned,
Syrians perish amidst ferocious feasts of hellish fire!

Sirens hiss, bombs whistle past from their heavenly-hellish source,
Syrians flee fast seeking refuge in bunkers
Bombs kiss the mouth of the ground
Amidst pernicious explosions that create mounds and moans,
And gaping craters, amidst sighs and sorrows,
Syrians flee from foe and friendly fire,
Bizarre kisses from surreal
And phoney proxy war!


Who will do graffiti on decimated alley walls?
Wired with booby-trap shrapnel,
Infested with sinister snipers
And wonky spooky ghosts?!

In war, there are no victors or vanquished,
All stand sorrowful losers,
Crestfallen and languid,
The whole world stands a loser,
Syria has turned the graveyard of the world!

Oh, Syria cries
And sheds bloody tears aloud,
Syria's cries allowed,
Yet hushed in one neglected corner,
Syria gave the world Steve Jobs and Apple,
Gave the world Roman Civilization!
In all these, Syria invokes the Winner's Curse!

The world hears but watches helpless,
At wanton butchery of innocent masses,
Unabated,
White Helmets criss-cross and run helter-skelter,
Risking their lives to save lives,
Collecting collateral casualties
From colossal catastrophe,
Syria cries and cries aloud
At pogrom and pillage of her sons and daughters

Yet the world hears and looks
On impotently and heedlessly
While war erections create mighty orgasms
Amidst a whale of a war
Of criminal callousness
And catastrophic contumacy

There goes brutal battles
And bestial blood-letting
In a blood-bath,
Syrian waters are polluted
With blood bombs and blasted bodies,
Bloated by blistering barrel
And cluster bombs,
Those burrow beneath buried bunkers,
Of Syrian invalids hiding
From hideous monstrosity

They are furrowed fodder and organic fertilizer
For the war farmers,
Who ferret out fear-stricken frail fellas,
Fetched and smoked out
Like desert rats from hideouts

Many Syrians are buried badly before their time
Beneath mountains of rubble
They choke to death from poisonous fumes
Of fatal gases

Amidst mangled steel and corpses,
Cremated alive
And cemented into rubble-
Cemeteries of collapsed edifices
Clutch the horizon,
Syrians are buried badly
With their once earthly belongings
Heaped on their bodies

Thousands and thousands trapped
In castles of rubble mountains and ruins
Human carcasses rot
And rodents raid
The desecrated sarcophaguses of the dead
Even in death,
Their bodies know no peace nor dignity!

This lacuna in human history,
An aberration,
Will haunt humanity
Humungously till eternity-
The story of humanity's indignity
And atrocity to fellow humans

Syrians weep, Syrians wail
For the spoliation of their once fertile land
Now turned a monster-guzzling oozing blood
Syrians hail for help,
Thousands sit trapped waiting, and waiting,
Marooned in self-imposed prisons
Of their own abodes,
What an irony of war
And paradox of fate
Of hate against mate!

Slowly, slowly they waste away
From pangs of hunger
Amidst throes of thirst
In squalid dirt, disease, danger, and death,
Syria now a den of hell,
A gaping global festering sore,
Syrians bear bruises and brunt
Of the great war- whore,
Who came to desecrate their shore!

Syrian fleeing fugitives,
Who will shelter?
Who will feed?
Barred by barbed wire
And steep concrete walls,
Caught between biblical burning city
And a beckoning mirage of greener pastures,
But alas, a vista of watery graves
Stares them in nightmares,
Of the great mired marine mare,
A gorgon of sour grapes

Like Lot's wife
Transmogrified into a stultifying
Pillar of salt,
Oh, fugitives turned statues
And stateless tramps in foreign climes,
Oh, these terrified fleeing terrestrials,
Where can they turn?
Flee into space,
To become celestial?!


Into dreadful dinghies
They dangle their fate
Before greedy human traffickers,
Packed like sardines,
They tempt the sea monster
Waiting for a gargantuan meal,
Of those fleeing theatre of massacre


From pillar to post
They engage the green monster
With gaping snout ready to gulp
Down the torrents of fugitives
Descending into their aquatic graves,
Their fates sealed-

Corpses of drowned toddlers,
Women and all, washed ashore
Dotting Mediterranean shores
Sure as death, aftermath of war whores
Even in death, they have no decency

Their nakedness uncovered more,
Do we have norms or mores?
Whores of war must answer,
Syrians look west, they look east,
All they see are beasts in war feast,
Swollen by power yeast

Syrians look and look at the sky for escape
They see a bloodshot landscape
Where the sun hugs and kisses
The horizon twice a day
Alas, consolation dawns
In the twilight of their illumination,
All shall pass,
No condition so bleak
Can peak and speak forever,
Syria will outlast them all-

That which was bombed
And scorched into extinction,
Shall at long last
Sprout and gain distinction
Syrian woes shall build a pavilion
Of beautiful rubble mountain,
A monument to their ordeals,
And a shame to their tormentors

A giant has stabbed
His big foot into the chest of Syria,
There, a window
Where there used to be
A human chest

Syria's eyes are gorged
Out of their sockets,
A sordid spectacle
Of a scarecrow
Stares the world
And scares mediators off,
Syria's stomach is twisted
Round to her back,


Her entrails scooped out
By the clawed feet of Big Foot,
Syria bleeds profusely
From orifices and apertures,
The pillars of her feet
Demolished and detonated into smithereens,
Syria's face contorted along with her body,
She stands a sorry spectacle,
Naked for judgement
Before the Sanhedrin of the world,
She is as guilty as a ghost,
The world sends her a Twitter post
The jurors have no mercy,
Syria awaits judgement of posterity
Syria believes in laws of reciprocity,
The irrefutable laws of Karma and retribution!

By Kwesi Atta Sakyi
Lusaka, 6th November, 2016