by Sudeep Sen
 
Soaked in blood, children,
their heads blown out
even before they are formed.
 
Gauze, gauze, more gauze ?
interminable lengths
not long enough to soak
 
all the blood in Gaza.
A river of blood flowing,
flooding the desert sands
 
with incarnadine hate.
An endless lava?stream,
a wellspring red river
 
on an otherwise
parched-orphaned land,
bombed every five minutes
to strip Gaza?of whatever
is left of the Gaza strip.
With sullied hands
 
of?innocent children,
we strip ourselves
of all dignity and grace.
 
Look at the bodies
of the little ones killed ?
their scarred faces?smile,
 
their vacant eyes stare
with no malice
at the futility?of all
 
the blood that is spilt.
And even as we refuse
to learn from the wasted
 
deaths?of these children,
their parents, country,
world? weep blood. Stop
 
the blood-bath ? heed, heal.
 
Sudeep Sen?is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and ?one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene? (BBC Radio).?