afghanipoem

not my home
but i read
some Kipling
and i watch
the news and
more importantly
the internet for
news of the war
of the history
a documentary
on death. at
least ten
children
accident-
ally bomb
-ed in the
last seven
or so days.

driving in
pick-up trucks
the warlords again
control a lot of the
outlying land - it's not
like another vietnam,
but i'm reminded of
the russians eventu
-ally getting out
after years and
years and now
the fighters
the US trained
train their sites
on their teachers.

afghanistan, more
heroin now, women
still not respected,
children still going
hungry, guns and bombs
and ordinance as the
ordinary (land mines
and cluster bombs!)
people die.

i remember a story
(can't remember where)
of a man in afghanistan
who was walking around
the country eating rocks
then passing them - a
strange man in a strange
land of war and war and
more war we left for the
most part, setup another
battlefield in another
land and began again.

afghanistan, full of history
and misery is now living in
a surreal mix of the 18th
and 21st centuries,
machines of death
and mud homes,
sad souls
longing
for the
answer.

afghanistan i shed a tear,
a poem,
for thee.