War

Guns and rockets going off, bombs hitting houses and hospitals,
The chatter of gunfire, the deafening sound of war,
It bring tears to my eyes, as I watch my city fall in ruin,
Hoping that help would come any minute soon.

Nation after nation, all filled with the sound of war,
It echoes in my ears, as I hear it more and more,
The sound of buildings falling down, of innocent women and children screaming,
A long time ago I thought that this would soon end, but now I realize that I must have only been dreaming.

My friends and family, nowhere to be seen, I have no parents, no one to comfort me,
Sometimes I look back and try to remember, the times of happiness that we all shared,
When people were always smiling, and the countryside was more than just a load of rubble and stone, When I could be in the safety of my parents clinging to me, in the safety of my own home.

But now my life is filled with this horrible sound; the sound of war,
And I no longer no what or where my home is,
The soldiers don't care about us; they just fire at anyone they see,
Man, woman, child, or even animal; Sometimes I look up into the sky and pray that I could one day be free.

by Hashim Aziz, age 11

What Hashim told us about his poem: I wrote this poem to generally express what many of us feel about war, and to express my own opinions, and in the poem the opinions of a young and confused, homeless orphan, who tells his story and how he has to live, and how he remembers the happy times that he had before the war began. The place and the war in the poem are both completely fictional, and so is the character, but I'll bet there are many more children out there, who aren't fictional, who aren't just part of a poem, but who are living in the same conditions.