Stand-Still Picture Poem by Vera Sidhwa

And while it flashed I saw it,
The man with a black profile on orange fire.
A stand-still picture and it was lit,
We all soon from war retire.

His paralyzed form fell onto the ground,
And there he made his final grave.
Shells all around his suspended - blew around,
Are all the soldiers brave?

Yet we all talk of glorious war,
And a brave new world, the battle ground.
The running soldier with his gun wants more,
As he poses still without a sound.

And four children half-clothed, half bare,
Show their running agonized still-picture forms,
And napalm on their skin and hair,
They scream in suspension like windy storms.

But one day the stand-still picture soldier,
Comes back to his homeland.
All the smoke of war is smoldered,
They treat him like a super man.

Well this is all I can handle,
Enough stories about war,
I must close the magazine and blow out the candle,
And someone is waiting at my door.