This is for my friend, Iraqi poet Yahia al-Samawy, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Saddam régime before seeking asylum in Australia. He is safe here now with his family but re-lives the torture every day by being forced to see his birth-country torn apart – first by Saddam Hussein, then by the US and now by ISIS.



Flood and desert

for Yahia Al-Samawy *



The country you love is flooded with tyrants who abuse the name of Allah and liberators shouting Justice and Freedom whose faithless bullets and bombs kill just the same.



you said
the tears
you shed

as you
wrote
the poem

would have
filled a cup
yet

you turn
these tears
to ink

spill it onto
the desert
of a page

and oases grow
where once
there was only

grit
to irritate
our eyes.


© rob walker, 2006.

(This poem was originally published in Poets of The World http://www.poetasdelmundo.c...
and also appears in my newest collection Original Clichés (Ginninderra Press, 2016)
https://www.amazon.com/Original-Cliches-Rob-Walker/dp/1760411272