Two Poems
by Mohammad Zaki Zaki
My Kabul: Your Future is Unknown
My Kabul my city
Your avenues and roads are paved in blood
Your people lose their limbs and bodies throughout your streets
No one can predict your future confidently
Your citizens are being lost day by day
My Kabul, your future is unknown
I love your people
Those who like walking and jogging
The people who sing and chant for peace and security
Those who work hard to bring change for their lives
Those who are beheaded though they commit no crimes
My Kabul, your future is unknown
I am sorry about your disillusioned folks
Your destroyed rutted sidewalks and roads
I am sorry for your injured and handicapped citizens
I am sorry for your devastated parents
My Kabul, your future is unknown
We are still alive in a city
Where blood flows in the streets like a river
Where all night guns are fired from the homes of windows
Where orphans starve in your neighborhoods
We are still alive in a city where nothing is peaceful and calm
My Kabul, your future is unknown
May God destroy the Taliban so that Afghanistan will be
secure and peaceful forever
May God behead the Daeish group who behead
innocents in Afghan provinces
May God destroy their homes as they ruined ours
May God drive them out forever as they pushed us from our homeland
My Kabul, your future is unknown
When mothers sit together, they talk about the sorrow
of their daughters and sons
When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others
When the orphans sit together, they talk about lost fathers and mothers
My Kabul, your future is unknown
I will die with my heart full of hopes
With a humorous book of fun and happiness
With a homeland empty of crime
I will die with a mind full of fresh dreams for your future
Farkhunda: Victim of Ignorance
Dear sister Farkhunda!
My body still smells your blood across Kabul’s streets
My eyes still cry for your loneliness
My heart is filled with your pain
Dear Farkhunda, you were lit on fire by the dirty hands of ignorance
Your feeble body was kicked like a ball among players
Your beautiful face was covered in the red tears of your soft blood
Your strong body turned cold and hard as stone
No helpful hand came forth to save you
No one to hear your quiet voice
No one to take your hands
No real human came to rescue you from those harsh moments
Dear Farkhunda they killed you ignorantly
They poured your pure blood over a dark city
They burned you instead of feeling your agony
They devoured your life like wolves
My sister, did you see?
Did you see any sympathy from your people?
Did you comprehend the enthusiasm of that mob?
Did you feel the cooperation of your city mates?
Your final hour was pain, your trembling voice
It was your screams, it was fire, it was the crowd
Afghan, Muslim, clergy
It was car, stone, it was death
My dear sister Farkhunda
You passed away like a fly
Like a person among enemies
Like a gazelle attacked by tigers
Like a stranger among strangers
You are the theme of my solitary poem
My words declare your voice
My mumbling describes your solitude
My country is ashamed for your lonely soul
