WOUNDED WORDS FROM A FORGOTTEN LAND

Wounded Words From A Forgotten Land

I was born in Bamyan

I was born in Kabul

I was born in Panjshir

I was born everywhere…

You don’t know me

But I know who you are.

You’re the one who came to kill me

And you will kill me

With all your evil skills

Just because I am who I am

Just because I dare to look

Into the abyss of your devil soulless eyes.

You may think that you killed me before

And you did, thousands of times

You may think you killed me forever

But you didn’t and you won’t.

You just shot the reflection of your evil mind.

My innocence, my strength and my hope

Will go on to haunt you and defeat you.

While I sit and sing

(I know you forbade me to do it

And that’s one more reason to do it)

I look at the clouds and touch the ground

Always for the first and the last time.

I can hear the roar coming

I know you are just around the corner.

Before you take me and rape me

You’ll kill all my family and all my sheep.

Yet, I don’t move

I sing, I wait, I persist.  

As you pass through the hidden valleys and plains

Through the ancient gorges and the peaceful mountains

All there is loses its natural joy and innocence.

My childhood escapes to the distance

My youth vanishes as I breathe

My old age is a useless wise ragged book

1400 years is the age of my fears and my pain

You’re the inventor and executioner

Of all my nightmares.

The only paradise that you’ll meet

Is the hell you have created

Since you were born.

No 72 virgins to rape

No honey and berries to taste

No glory or reward for your inhuman deeds.

Only emptiness, evil and death

Only you, alone, with yourself

And your endless darkness.

What I see

Is not what is before me anymore.

With your creed and your gun

With your blindness and cruelty

You shut my eyes to all there is.

Yet, here I am

I sing, I wait, I persist…  

In your eyes I see only

The nothing you will be…

São Ludovino, 17/10/2021

Wounded Words From A Forgotten Land, poem & video by São Ludovino

LIFE AS A MIRAGE

Initial excerpt of the text I wrote for the video Life as a Mirage:  

There are places in the world

where life seems always

incomplete

Too many times, to live

means only to survive

against all odds

One of those places

is Afghanistan,

again,

mainly to women, children

and minorities

After centuries of endless wars

After the fall of empires and kings

After ten years of guerrilla against

the soviet occupation (1979-1989)

After years of pseudo-communism

and anti-communism

autocracy and theocracy

And a civil war that was more

a religious and ethnical war

like all wars in Islamic countries…

After Afghanistan became the nest

of terrorist groups

like Al-Qaeda.

After a partial occupation by USA and allies (2001-2021)

that brought more war, guerrilla and terror attacks

perpetrated by Islamic extremists

like the Taliban

But also freedom and rights for the majority,

mainly women, children

and ethnical minorities...

Along with the constant

tribal and religious conflicts

and the constant collusion of Pakistan,

Qatar, and other Islamic countries

with terrorists and Islamic extremists…

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban,

an Islamic extremist group,

took over the power again

and brought fear, death

and oppression again...

after a first long bloody nightmare

1996-2001

Life as a Mirage - Afghanistan, text & video by São Ludovino