And Still the Drums Keep Beating

I've put this up before, but it appears it's worth putting up again, and again. I'm not entirely sure when this poem will stop being relevant.

Enemy Drums


I woke up to the sound of drums,
But it wasn't music, they were bombs,
Yet with precision was the rhythm of their sound,
Every two seconds, three would hit the ground.

Four of my neighbor's five children died,
And the only one that had survived,
Buried his siblings all day long,
Wondering what it was they did wrong.

The sound of bombs muted our own,
And this was no longer for us a home,
But there’s no escape from where we are,
The helping hands and hearts are far.

But it wasn’t that which choked our souls,
To hear the news was like eating burning coals,
Three were wounded from the enemy’s side,
While a hundred of my neighbors died.

Yet the story of those three was written in one big page,
Condemnation was bitter and it was told with such rage,
And the hundred were mentioned in half a line,
All tears for us just had to be dried.

We’re dying but terrorists is what we’re called,
They play their drums, but we’re appalled.
The voices of hundreds who died unheard,
Pleads of wailing mothers deferred.

The news, it burns, it tells their story,
And it seems as though they suffer with glory.
But in our land we’re slaughtered and killed,
And their lust for murder is never fulfilled.

So hear my voice or let me die,
Listen to my truth and decide if it’s a lie,
But don’t keep me waiting for too long,
I’m dead very soon, and I’ll take you along.

I’m a rat in a cage, tortured without end,
The torturer kills and for help he will send,
He'll cry like a victim and torture again,
Strong are his allies and feeble are my friends.

Not a word of those four children was said,
They’re sleeping in their graves, their killers in their beds.
Those innocent dead are criminals in the world’s eyes,
And still the drums keep beating with lyrics made of lies.