Get Your Premium Membership

Margins of Pandora

Tim’s father had been a refugee once he put down his fight and his gun

The story is that he embarked on the very last ship leaving East Prussia

Under siege tanks and bombs from above fireworks of madness and defeat

A wounded soldier which is what gave him the pass for the vessel

Lucky escape and transition from war and a past razed to the ground

Guilty of being a follower of an inhumane quest for territory and glory

Like so many others he left behind what little he had but he was alive

A belt buckle remains and a green Army bread pouch a medal or two

The misplaced person’s passport with a picture of a morbid young man


               -Uncertainty and a fresh start licking his scars-


Hans climbed over the wall in Berlin and was torn to pieces by guard dogs

Was gunned down from merciless watch towers before he crawled onto a mine 

They called it the death strip where he paid the price for fleeing East Germany

He did not die a clean death but bled out rather slowly bits of brain on his skull

His family was punished by demise and posthumous incriminations of the regime


               -Passed on for ultimate freedom-


Mohamed had never done any harm had been a street vendor selling fruit seeds

Olives and nuts from his plot near the cemetery in Aleppo had recently widened

His business offering bolts screws and hinges before the sky turned unhinged

Had scraped soot from bricks and straightened nails for unbending the havoc

Sort of recycling before life screwed him for good lost his plot and he surrendered

To the miserable fact that his wife mother and offspring found their graves

Under the rubble covered under the ruins of shelter just in time for a new dawn

One almond tree still shedding blossoms skewed over by prayer and wings

From a shot down aeroplane with its insignia burnt into his soul and transition

Running on empty with the fuselage leaking he joined the trek towards salvation


               -No family no tower of strength the minarets silent-


Fatima stood in line for bread and for water in a long queue stripped to her core

In the Gaza Strip bereft of undying belief values possessions and dignity as she

Had toiled in the camp for decades been born there and so were her children

Took stock of history unfolding once more with passage and strangled outlook

Looked at the sea of misery and hope of the glimmering ocean but gun boats


               -Hindered escape because Palestine was besieged-


Anton is a charity worker full of faith in humanity idealistic and forthcoming 

He has not given up hope yet but the odds are stacked against his mission

Food convoys are stopped at the eviscerating border under a crescent of power

He is aware of burrows and tunnels to Egypt but lingers on borrowed intent

Quite strange that the rich can order Kentucky Fried Chicken from Sinai 

They are thriving unhindered like they always do when the living gets rough

And that weapons and detonators move freely below the surface of anger

Dug into memory of explosions and flashes of unresolved conflict’s arrest


               -Flight fight surrender or fate-


Traffickers of human cargo offer safe passage in overflowing rubber dinghies

Sealed in suffocating lorries and crossing mountains of torn hearts selling out

Fake documents and fake illusions exiting in transit never arriving in safety

Frost on peaks of cast out shadows or heat in the desert a mirage of the sun

Drought in the traveller’s souls and no water sprung from God’s heaven

Not just a trickle of migrants but a flood of seekers a marginalized crowd


               -Blessed are the meek naked at last-


A triad of poverty race and injustice and there are many triangles in the

Equation of greed self-righteousness and demarcation spelt into eternity

Splitting nations so called races and ethnic divide and infinite schisms

Of nature and nurture where altars and prayer mats disentangle from faith 

Divine intervention projected penance and an alliance of exploitation


               -What will be has to be but will it and why-


Tim’ s father is dead now and there is hardly a trace of Hans or Mohamed

Fatima still hangs onto a thread of persistence though the noose is in place

Border guards carry on to make deals with traffickers and reincarnated devils

Margins of terror and error persist to draw arbitrary lines in the sand and 

Desperate spirits succumb to lineage of helplessness and delineation of rights


               -And Tim dreams of not giving up on his dream-

               -But Pandora has taken a good luck at the limits-

               -Affronted by boundaries and endless frontiers-  


19th February 2019

Copyright © | Year Posted 2019




Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Date: 2/19/2019 1:02:00 PM
kai, a tragic look at the treachery of life beautifully handled with mythical touches ... huggs
Login to Reply

Book: Reflection on the Important Things