! ! ! ! ***f.I.R Of Missing Blood***! ! ! ! Poem by Rehan Hyder

[In Memoriam of Islamabad Tragedy]

In a typeset that just shrieked “40”
there were other boring stats about
gore, tonnage, glass debris
pristine, pertinent political
condolences on a clockwork ennui
Preening, pruning eyes looked for one
red spot, stain or dot
on the salt and pepper of facts.

Amidst the madness of forensic rummaging
in the thick of salt, fright and sadness
cringing searches for missing limbs
I’m a madman looking for red
any hue, nuance or shade
darn 40 dead and 240 injured
their very blood vapourized
by the calamity of acid.
not a dropp remains to mark their graves
like the raucous created by a silent
absence of tears upon the graveside
of a deceased beloved
so does this burial ground yell
Hounds of hell! ! ! Hell bequeath

But I shall not seek the crimson!
Alas I shall not seek the crimsons,
of my brothers my sisters my children
for I feel that through
The vile trading for dollars
And seeking immigrations
my reds have immigrated too
or perhaps fled from the
corners of this world

Had they been here they would have;
dyed some clandestine communion
in scarlet

interspersed in a red ochre chunri
with black and then perhaps

may have lived as crimson blush
on some maiden’s memory

they are gone irredeemably
the vermillion, alizarin
and I must now go on
Merely with this impotent
outage in my veins.

*** My gratitude to Wardha for adding value and pruning mindless maleness and making it truly red