A Cry From Burma

_ Van Biak Thang

 

How much more innocent blood ought to be shed

And how many more civilians need be shredded

That Burma’s protracted power-cancered crisis

Be recognised, accepted and heard as a deadly virus

 

Thousands are internally displaced and preyed on

And ethnic nationalities oppressed and forgotten

Whose villages and houses, bulldozed and burnt down

Yet their plights in the jungles ignored and unknown

 

Millions hide and flee their homelands as refugees

While the junta shows off honeys and stings like bees

Many more remain enslaved and imprisoned inside

Which the regime calls “Peace and Development” outside

 

China, Russia and South Africa vetoed the agenda

Albeit their knowledge of contagious blights in Burma

Where India came to play a single-strung guitar

To which the military sings their viperous choir

 

How many more prisoners of conscience be tortured

And how many more children be left unnurtured

That a cry from Burma under the junta, so ruthless

Be heard and recognised as forlorn and powerless.