Best Afghanistan Poems
Dear Carolyn:
Another letter from another tour
In this place in the sand they call Helmand
This will be my last, for you can be sure
To never look back on these Afghan lands
Dear James:
It's been so long since I've felt your embrace
Studied the constellations through your eyes
Found joy in the manly features of your face
Or recovered from our last sad goodbyes
Dear Carolyn:
Another two lost, one was my best friend
Before it's me, I pray my leave is soon
My heart is crying out, my hopes descend
Is tomorrow my day, in deathly strewn
Dear James:
I've been praying so hard; surely you're safe
The son I carry will have his Dad's smile
I don't think God would orphan our young waif
You must walk through our door in a short while
Dear Carolyn:
The joy in your letter, mother to be
Me a father, soon to be homeward bound
Grow with my kin in the land of the free
To thrive in peace on American ground
Dear James:
I think our boy will be a football star
Perhaps he’s sending a message to Dad
Like Peyton and Eli he’s thrusting hard
To have you and him here, I’ll be so glad
Dear Carolyn:
As James was preparing to say goodbye
Boarding the chopper to take him your way
Enemy aircraft dropped bombs from the sky
I regret to say this was James’ last day
Commanding Officer Brannigan
U.S. Armed Forces, Afghanistan
Here in violence and in beauty, living under the same moon
The beauty is so ancient, but the present violence here consumes
On one hand Afghanistan is all that it appears
Insurgents here are so deadly; through the land they spread fear
But a turn of that coin, would reveal a much different side
A land which contested the Great Alexander, and ruled by Shahs with pride
With its mighty Hindu Kush, and many rivers at hand
The graveyard of countless empires, its resistance that spans
The brave here fight hard, a fierce gamble, with their inheritance of wealth
Battling the Taliban with an opulence of old grit, using the hands they were dealt
Keeping Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i Sharif, and the capital -Kabul
Free from tyrannical domination, oppressed by Taliban rule
I’m in awe of these courageous Afghans, this country has come far
This is the Afghanistan which I see, who else will share where they are?
This poem was inspired by "Under The Same Moon" a three way collaboration by Poet Destroyer A, Chris D.Aechtner, and NIKKO P..
Written DEC 2013 in Afghanistan
Under her burqa
there is a secret she keeps
a red push-up bra
They were able to see the sun at last, to look
all around, finally breathe without burqas
begin a new chapter.
Their words held more confidence.
Is respect too large a word, perhaps not when
whispered with laughter.
Wearing smiles and proud faces, their
daughters went to school like the boys,
was their future assured?
Was learning numbers and their alphabet
fulfilling their dreams, or just making
them more obscured?
Women could greet each other on the street
not be beaten with a pole, but never look in the
eyes of a man.
They could have paying jobs, wear sharp clothes, let
lovely faces be exposed, never once looking back
before freedom began.
That all went away on a terrible day
when planes left and men bled out of hills
with rage
to rule again with knife-sharpened hands
and women once again destined to hide inside
their dark cage.
So, what was accomplished: a taste of
freedom
that rested on whims of people living
far away?
Is it perhaps worse to have known and
then lose
or never to have known--
who can say?
As life uncertainly shifts backward again
to religious rule and sin
will minds and lives be what's left
blowing in the wind
in Afghanistan...
Abandoned people of Afghanistan -
what can most people do? What can we say
since after all these years when war began.
Your liberty has now been yanked away.
In shock the world looks on with fear for you,
abandoned people of Afghanistan.
Though some escaped, the number is too few
of those who heard the news and quickly ran.
You’re left now to the wrath of Taliban.
Your instant plight is sadly all too real.
Abandoned people of Afghanistan,
what horror and betryal you must feel.
For those pursued by ugly brutal men,
injustice has you in its grip. What can
we do but pray while you’re in the lion’s den?
Abandoned people of Afghanistan!
Sept. 3, 2021
for the 'Afghanistan' Poetry Contest of by: Kai Michael Neumann
I feel like Afghanistan
All the friends who helped me through my depression
Have left
I want to leave this body I call home
Rather than wage war with my demons
Strong and mighty
Smiling is equivalent to holding a plane at Kabul.
I fly for a minute
And drop back down into the abyss
Depression you restrict me like the Afghan woman now.
But I will learn to love my body
And I will find my home some day
Two Decades In Afghanistan
Haiku
By: Miracle Man
8-28-2021
In call to duty,
Many gave some, some gave all.
Mission accomplished.
We had a desert mission
Just north of us in Zarghun Shahr
But little did we know that day
We wouldn’t get that far.
We did not doubt the intel
That led us up the road of dust;
an IED exploded,
in up armor we trust.
To check if there were wounded,
The hatch went down and out we went.
The medics tended to the wounds
And I my ammo spent.
I fired on them with fervor
Though til then I’d not shot
a single round in battle;
Sharp shooter I was not.
I focused on the basics:
steady, aim, breath, trigger squeeze;
Before my second shot was fired
I’d brought one to his knees.
A second man was running
but Cam was by my side.
Adept at all things gunning,
He shot, the second died.
How their eyes danced with darkness
and no more saw a beam of light,
Turning us into killers
Baptized in blood and fight.
How their eyes turned to rapture
When they died in the Stan
and darkly dancing, stung me,
those eyes of Taliban.
How their eyes danced with darkness,
the cursed strangers on that day;
for what they’d done, fate would demand
A heavy price to pay.
I lay there, panting heavily,
and Cam gave me high five.
Our training had not failed us,
and we were still alive.
Story of Afghanistan
The barren land of my birthplace
Green at times but screening a rocky face
Known for thousands of years for its warrior race
Let me tell you the truth,
No one really wanted this “space”.
Up until two lions began prying around
Initially, just fooling around
Afterwards, casting off their cannon sound
Resembling the 6th night of an infant’s fête
Building their castles, and so began the burial grounds.
The lions pledged to crush the other
With a master plan
Dividing the blood brothers
Such was the instruction of the queen mother
As the clans clashed and killed one another.
The chiefs were swallowed by the promise of gold
The mullahs were swapped for the hollow soul
The seniors by the fire recounted and foretold
The purpose for the lion’s vehemence
This story definitely in time will unfold.
The old grew timeworn
Waiting for their young ones to return home
The teenagers free born
Screamed out of their mosques’ domes
Come and join us in this struggle
Faced with the crusaders of the Church of Rome,
But little did they know,
No one will return but the maimed men to a funeral home.
The sturdier lion won the combat
But what has become of my Afghanistan
The wolf in a sheep’s disguise
Has spoiled my jade paradise
My heart denies it but I may have bombed my youthful chums,
This is now a global land-dwelling for bums and slums!
The lion wishes to be unveiled this time
So he promises to take the last dime
After all it pays to cooperate in war crimes!
He roars in a deafening cry
I bring Democracy to this land
With loads of cash in one hand
A whip in the back hand--forgetting the long years of perfidy
I now declare and demand
This is the new Promised Land.
A woman of this realm is exposed with a promise
She is liberated by democracy
Famous on national publications like the story of Pocahontas
She’s affirmed independent and agreed to arise out of the darkness
As the saga is read to the United States Congress
She exhales
And anticipates the lion’s hunger
Waiting for the day when she will be veiled, unveiled, and then veiled again
Not by ordinary men
But by inscription of law.
Thank you for sealing the decree!
Afghanistan, Afghanistan,
you can't win a war in Afghanistan
ask the Russians and A Mer I Cans,
if they can't do it, than no-one can
Watch out!....The War in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Afghanistan,
full of Al-Qaeda and Taliban
opium poppies throughout the land,
a big paycheck for Afghanistan,
Watch out!... for The War in Afghanistan.
In the still of night, before he took flight,
Navy Seals dropped by, Bin Laden must die......
Afghanistan, Afghanistan,
it's time that we leave Afghanistan,
We've kicked the Taliban in the Can
no need for us to lose Servicemen
Watch out !... for The War in Afghanistan....
let's leave, get out of Afghanistan...
No more........War in Afghanistan...........
ideals to inspire soldiers
when 9/11 spewing black clouds meant a
complicated revenge
defeat terrorists, take out bin Laden
remake a country in democratic vestments
golden good intentions that lose their way in
an undertow of violence
the bones of wartime, bullets of combat carnage
Taliban insurgents hide and seek in Pakistan
militants wait to impose their laws
as a regime falls, unhinged by corruption
unwilling to fire a shot
swift capitulation like jaws snapping shut
US departure, flawed
dangles like severed wires
refugees stampede
flee the bondage of remaining
evacuation - a spreading blood stain, chaotic
Afghanistan intervention, no sound preconditions
for success
in an end game that had no ending?
just more of the same?
achievements of 20 years
seep through outstretched hands
like heated wars
storms of desert sand
that fixate on what cannot be changed
Poem composed September 5/21
For Afghanistan Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
Atrocious thinking and violence are
Father fed to bed sons in hatred sheets
Gowned in anger and false ideology
Heisting their true natures to stimulate
Abhorrent dogmas justifying violence and suffering -
News of heartbreaking actions frighten the world
In ways that shadow box our collective fears,
Subject us to senseless ignorance and brutality
Tapping us in a net of collective nightmares -
Attacking and torturing are no one's true nature.
None but God knows when and how love will overcome.
Mother, I have seen, where the world has been...
Mother, I have I have seen it clean.
The dirt and muck,
Of those who monger war.
The broken arms of Justice,
In the realm of the nether and underworlds.
The Earth has broken, and monsters,
Have crept out of Her heart.
Fear and infamy,
Famine, greed and gluttony...
Mother, why are we good people made to suffer such?
Mother says,
Darling, I know, you are a little flower,
You came to this Earth to make it beautiful.
Now, you have grown a mind and can question,
Do you know, that this has such a power,
That the right question can mobilise a thousand people,
To action,
Against all that is not right and unjust.
This suffering, is the suffering of our land and people,
Infact, we are not the only ones who are suffering,
Our friends in other lands are suffering too...
Everyday, they take time out of their schedules to look up the news on us,
They pray for us,
They send us their love and protection.
They care for us,
They build up money and send to us.
Darling, not everyone is bad,
And a lot many people would say we are privileged,
You and I...
We don't have to face any atrocities of this Taliban,
Because your Dad is close to them.
That is it, Mummy,
I fear I have become an offspring of a vile, cruel man...
I wish to end his life so,
If not his then mine...
She said and cried,
Her mother held her in her arms and cried as well...
Just how far is the train of freedom from the discriminated son?
Just how far is the train of freedom from the black homeless child?
Just how far is the train of freedom from the disabled poet?
And just how far are the winds of change from a corrupted nation!?
Just how far is the train of freedom from the fields of Waterloo?
Just how far is the struggling warrior from the mountain top?
Just how long is 365 days 27 times behind bars, I mean,
Just how far is freedom from a lonely child at play?...
Just how far is peace of mind from the hot desert Afghanistan!?
Just how far from the market is the Nigerian widow to her kids—
They hope today she has something to eat.
Just how far is the satisfaction of a nation
From the peak of the Mdzimba mountains
From the fountain of the Mantenga falls
From the wellness of the proud Sibebe rock?
Just how many bullets are left to finish the people of Venezuela?
How many bullets must a child in Mozambique have to dodge in order to live?
How many drops of water are left in Mali,
How many spoons of rice are left in Southern Somalia?
Just how far is freedom from the pains of this world?...
Not so many miles away;
A village or two in between,
A walking distance from the station:
There lies his tomb.
Given as a gift from Germany to Kabul zoo in Afghanistan
No fields to run in - just a miserable enclosed barren land
You were blessed with a beautiful lioness partner, Chucha
She must have made you feel no less than a majestic Shah
You survived against all the invasions, and the bloody wars
Behind those dark miserable cramped closed barren doors
You were a survivor, that against all the cruelly made odds
Was even threaten to be killed, by the unholy Taliban sods
But your loyal keeper fought for your life, using the Quran
With the prophet Muhammad to aid you to all understand
That an animal should be respected as he had his own pets
To kill Marjan’ would in the end only leave you with regrets
But you were brought down by an egotistical Mujahedeen
Who you killed for mauling your Chucha, for fun it seemed
In turn the killed brother gave you a hand grenade as a gift
As the damage caused was more than, un-deservedly swift
You lost your sight in one eye and near all of it in the other
Because of that un-deserving revenge of a grieved brother
You lost most of your teeth and with the blast your hearing
Yet you survived, to Afghans, you became more endearing
That they took it upon themselves to then kill this very man
For the ignorance of the situation as he did not understand
You had thought this man was a threat to your lioness pride
As it was in the end his own fault he was attacked then died
As the wars in Afghanistan raged, so did the famine drought
When it came to food for you there was too little of it about
But the Afghan people gathered in force to see you were fed
No one wanted the Shah Marjan from hunger be found dead
You came through all of this, skin sagging on a frame so lean
But for it all, never did once made you ferocious or be mean
Your beloved keeper walked with you, within your enclosure
Despite your injuries you always maintained your composure
Your name travelled the world, and they wished you the best
But near a quarter of a century, you as then laid yourself to rest
This tribute is to you mera jaan Marjan – the pearl of Afghanistan
May you always with Chucha, fly free, high above this desert land
Higher and higher, with the longed for eternal peace may you soar
As the winds carry along with it your once mighty and proudly roar