A Veteran Of The World War II / Poems by Muhammad Shanazar

Poems by Muhammad Shanazar






A Veteran Of The World War II



This poem has been chosen one of the top ten poems written on the topic of war during the last 1000 years, in the world. See the link:
http://www.site.co.uk/web:Top-10-war-poems



In my early days of childhood, I beheld a man,
He was in eighties with thin wobbly, shaky legs,
Slits slots were on his heels, broken were his boots.

Though they were dingy soiled yet he wore
A ragged shirt and old brown pants of army,
And he too wore one glassed frame of glasses.
He spoke to the street-kids with kind words,
But with quaking, quivering voice.
He always carried upon the bent structure of body,
A big bag hung on his shoulders behind,
Containing contents of the dotage.

He was expelled out from the house of his own,
By his sons, daughters and daughters-in-law,
And he roved, moved but not afar from the village.
When his belly beleaguered, harassed him,
He knocked at any door in front, in the street,
And fed it with the home-backed bread of charity
Soaking in water or pasting with the paste of chilies,
And he slept carefree in the mosque,
Or in summer under the trees in cool shades.

When he was in a good jolly, joking mood,
He used to tell us the Tale of Two Cities,
How the splendor was smashed shattered in seconds
How humanity went through cumbersome holocaust,
How he carried out his missions by hitting the targets,
How he lived in the trenches smelly with explosives,
How he was captured, encaged into the prisons of Japan,
While fighting for the crown and glory of Great Britain.