Plight of the Yazidis OR Another Bloody Stain on the Landscape of Religion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update: May 2018:The plight of the Yazidi people continues...]

[Update: November 15th 2015: The Yazidi people continue to suffer indescribable atrocities at the
hands of the cowardly murderers calling themselves Islamic State. Iraqi Kurds have retaken Sinjar from IS so there is light at the end of the tunnel for this minority group, at least for now. Out hearts go out to them and hopes that these I S psychopaths will eventually be wiped from the face of the earth as they deserve.]

Tens of thousands of Yazidis - mostly women and children - were forced to flee to Mount Sinjar, in north-west Iraq when the militant Islamic State (formerly ISIS) recently overran the Sinjar region.

The Yazidis have been surrounded by the militants for days in blistering heat, and with little food or water. Many have died. Thanks to the actions of the Kurdish peshmerga forces and US air strikes targeting the militants, many have now been able to cross into Syria and return to Kurdistan, but many others remain trapped. 

There have been reports of anyone refusing to convert to Islam being summarily executed by Islamic State, taken into slavery, and even buried alive.

All religious fundamentalists are a disgrace to their religion and to humanity. When will they ever learn...?

[Update, May 3rd 2015: Thousands of Yazidi men, woman and children have been massacred by so-called 'Islamic State' in northern Iraq.  Yet, acts of such appalling abuse against humanity and Islam continue to attract followers, especially among young, disaffected Muslims across Europe. ]

PLIGHT OF THE YAZIDIS or ANOTHER BLOODY STAIN ON THE LANDSCAPE OF RELIGION

Victims of a radical Islamic obsession

men, women and children, no safe haven,

under siege on a mountain

Misunderstood by many for centuries

(a common perception, devil worshippers)

a veil over the world’s eyes

Defiant, proud, pursued into the glare

of a sorry world’s shortcomings and media,

focusing on their terror

Islamic State (ISIS) as dark a force as evil,

rallying to a flag as black as any terror-devil

might well raise at will

World, wringing its hands at their misery,

does what it can, little enough for the Yazidi

children of the century

Islamic State, swathe of horrific obsession,

raping body, mind and spirit of a pure religion,

impregnating a generation

London, August 11th 2014

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

The Last Donkey Ride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Nature may be fickle, but so is human nature; the chances are whoever takes the last donkey ride will look around and see a coastline that’s nowhere near as sound or green as we see now or may have done centuries ago; even the sea is losing its wildlife to a polluted modernity. 

Humankind may we rail against nature where it wreaks havoc and tragedy, the greater irony being that, in our desperation to harness and make it serve our own ends, there is really little to choose between the two.

Most if not all we human beings are vain enough to think we deserve priority over the natural world. Could it be, though, that Earth Mother has other ideas?

THE LAST DONKEY RIDE

Time and again you have passed me by,

turned a cloth ear to cries from a heart

begging its release or at least some relief

from such pain as only they know
who roam  the shores of life asking Why?"

In spite of those willing to lend a hand

where the need is greatest, you  deny

ignore, the rhetoric of discretion being

much the better part of valour

So weary am I of being taken for a ride,

on wings of a prayer or bored donkeys

at the seaside reassuring children

how sand shells tell tales of a golden age

not yet spent … where the sea is as safe

as the sky is blue, grass is green and corn

grows high, hopes for world peace
alive and well if but sailing on driftwood 

among time’s uneasy swell

How long can it last, me doing my best

for kith and kin, you abandoning us

to empty words, promises of better days,

world left railing against humankind’s

inhumanity, sure to get the better of me

without even a native dignity to cover

my blushes as they strip me bare, caring

little more in their naivety for my decline

than our mutual salvation?

Hear me, your Earth Mother in distress,

ye who engineer the Politics of Progress 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

This collection is still in print, but only on sale in the UK.  All readers, including any outside the UK, can obtain (signed) copies direct from me at a generous blogger discount on [retail price + shipping]. Enquiries to: rogertab@aol.com with ‘Poetry collection’ or ‘Blog reader’ in the subject field.