Dear reader,

As I’ve said in the synopsis, this poem was written for Alan Shenu. 

I’m sure you’ve seen the photos (if you haven’t, it’s fine—because it is very heart wrenching) and it strikes a chord in my heart so much so that I cried quietly. He was so young, with so much dreams, hopes and future left to achieve and fulfil, and now he’s gone—just because he had to find a safe place to stay. 

It’s sickening that this happens while the world turns with all the political and economic concerns, with all the celebrity gossips going on and whatnot—just think how many children have died from war, from hunger, from fleeing their homes in unknown lands while we laugh and argue it all out? I don’t think these children had any choice at all but to follow their parents – who no doubt think they’re doing the best for their children – and children, I think, would have rather stayed home where they’ve always known the sense of belonging. I don’t think they’d want to barge into other’s home just to stay for a while and yearn for home from a distant land.

Not to mention with all the selfishness of people forgetting people. These children are people too, or now that Alan is gone he could’ve been a person in a crowd of people. People are busy thinking for themselves that they’ve become monsters. They forget that we’re all human—we’re all the same and all alike. We can hurt or get hurt and we can cry, we can bleed and we breathe the same air. We’re of the same species but we act around like venomous snakes, eating off each other in spite of that.

It’s as if people have forgotten that even light itself has distinguishing colours (seven, to be exact!) and just because we don’t see those colours all at once, doesn’t mean it’s not light that enables us to see things the way they are. That’s how humans are too—just because we have differences that distinguish us from the next person, doesn’t mean they’re not human, that they’re not one of us, or like us.

I can’t believe people have the time and place to be discriminating when this boy has been suffering and now he’s dead, who’s going to argue for him now? Who’s fighting for him now? 

So I had to write this poem. It’s somewhat my longest poem yet; it’s over 1100 words and 200 lines. But every word was chosen carefully to evoke your emotions.

I’d recommend the song “Run” by Leona Lewis if you wish to read this poem with a song, but anything goes—I want the words to speak for themselves, so let it echo in your head.

Lastly, I offer a prayer for Alan Shenu, his mother Rehana and his brother Ghalib. May God bless and ease their souls.

Thank you for reading

Swallowed Whole, Washed Ashore
 

Swallow me, o sweet Aegean!
I fear that life
has ran out of space,
            refusing to take me in—
a little child like me, a dreamer,
whose hope and future uncharted,
much like your rugged territories
of waves in harsh bedlam.
So take me,      sink me
into the deep depths
of fabled history recorded by Homer,
or Plato’s strict virtues that flow
within your every frenzied veins,
each of scolding love,
of wise caution tales
left spilled and unheeded, like
the warning of Icarus’ baab.

Swallow me, Aegean;
fill my pores, my ears, my nose
            my lungs
with your jade fluid—once
a witness to the havocs of men,
to tragedies rooted from men
and vicious misery birthed by men,
drag me down your drowning weight,
and instil me with your tiresome thoughts.
Let me drench in your quick sorrow,
let me soak in your swift anguish,
let me bath in your kind assist—
            soothe me through my passing.

Swallow me as I swallow you
through my unfulfilled eyes;
swallow me with your glittering jewels
and take apart my promised future
within this so little a soul.

Swallow me, Aegean;
What stench welcomes me
in your ebbing arms?
What chants greet me
while I succumb to this
intense desolation,
            this heart wrenching   exile?
What is that translucent
fiend that         beckons
as I leave this fading earth?
It gnaws upon my blood,
spreads rusting distaste
before decaying my memories
of sterile innocence—
            this      hatred,
the unfinished sin of careless,
selfish man.
It pulls me back from
the gentle calling of death
and lay waste
upon my unpolluted soul,
            rummaging for            leftovers
of dreams, hopes, future
to spoil and exploit,
sold to the Devil
so He can abuse my sacrifice.

Swallow me, o bitter Aegean!
It is the Devil and
war that chases me down –
            suspend me between life and death –
willing me to surrender
to their harrowing clutches,
so they can and they will,
tear me limb by limb
rob me of my breath
rid me,        rip my life
from the clasp my frail being,
from the slip of my dayek’s dying arms,
from the essence of this dense soil.

War hangs over my head;
it is the lustful whim within
each man who stands attest
to the violent wayward ways
of this cruel and uncomely
earth, this temporary paradise,
            this      man-made,
self-incurred strife.
War dictates from within man’s shadow,
with a keen eye and without
qualms nor scruples,
            separating and disuniting humanity;
it invades through land and body,
            and maims through infection—
a malignant hold that
rots the will of children,
disfiguring their dreams, hopes
and overtaking a future of goodness,
replacing them with corrupted vials
of cancerous hate and contempt.
It deviates the innocent
into wrath, a man
who rather gazes upon
            differences and dissimilarities
of the other man and gloats;
within this steep abyss,
            they rise to attack and slaughter
as if they own the life of others,
as if they’ve walked in others’ shoes,
as if they belittle the knowledge of providence;
            yet every man should very well see,
observe and revel in
            the God given oneness, equality
under varied colour of skin or
the opulent graces of ethnicity
that lived through everyone.
Each man can feel and think
or bleed and cry,
all striving to live,
            to survive this dismal,                        callous
invalid world of man.

Swallow me, Aegean;
indeed life has dulled, lost its lustre
in the midst of uniformed species
begetting the bloodshed of each other
through the commonplace thirst
that only pillaging war can replenish
            and now
life has morphed far
from what my baab warned of,
from what my dayek promised,
from what Ghalib pictured.
Life now rejects children like me
an advocate and believer
of harmony, a dreamer
who hopes – yearns – for peace immersed
within gentle unity and kind amity.
Life disapproves of the innocence
and pokes fun at the bare wisdom
of children, that sees
quiet similarities and sameness,
which has no barrier nor boundaries
and requires no language nor
even prior experience.
Life is a monstrous being,
no longer a place of welcome;
this is nowhere to belong,
            a graveyard of aspiration,
where sacred bonds are massacred
and Hell makes a living
            out of mayhem
and homes out of bones.

Swallow me, o wise Aegean!
war has fractured the isthmus
that I now fear to cross,
so spare me from its conceited
glares and poisonous claws
and let my death be a beautiful ending
one that guides, giving way for
the tortured and homeless
to end the journey I failed to complete.

Swallow this lifeless vessel,
consume me, Aegean;
disappoint the reach of the Devil,
let his hands fall defeated and fail.
Encourage man to change,
let him try the impossible and succeed.

Let the Aegean in me be unforgotten,
let this shapeless,
            ever-changing field of water
be the valley of comfort
where martyrs lie strewn
within every atom and
vapour of your seas,
so it can rain over lands
            and over man
to inspire justice and vengeance,
invoke a revolution
to overthrow the darkness—
just so the light of peace will
embed within every cure
and reign within every heart.

Take me apart so I enrich
            the history of your unsullied jades,
take me apart so I embody
            those moral virtues long left behind
and take me apart so I             endure
            the test of time that has long failed you;
let me be this banner of peace,
let me bear this sacrifice, this
immortal reminder
            of the trials of the broken,
the wronged, the overpowered,
of the little ones that flee home
with salty tears that mimic the taste
of your Greek melancholy.
Let this so short-lived life be a cheer,
a prompt towards movement
for change, for exemplary virtues,
for victory over oneself,
over one’s selfish and unwonted division
from one’s own fellow man.

So swallow me
and wash me ashore, o kind sea;
do not waste my life and ruin
this nameless little sacrifice, Aegean!

Let me be imprinted within the sights
of every broken and disenchanted soul;
let me be the ink to the treaty of peace
between two extremes and let them quell;
let me be the fire to the eternal flame
that set awake peace,
so it can rise forth from the ashes
long after the wake of agony and war,
and let the unaffected be afflicted
by the pure, rising powers of peace.
So take me in your tender flowing arms,
let me be drowned within the memories
of a wretched past and carry me
in the rogue waves of your tsunami,
begin a brand new dawn
            at shore and inland;
let me be remembered and
immortalised in this way
so no one shall forget me,
and let no tide wash off my trail of footprints
as your waves beat the sands

            for evermore.

*baab is Kurdish (Kurmanji dialect) for father; dayek is mother.