ational Poetry Writing Month, Day 11’s challenge to write the Bop.

The invention of Poet Afaa Michael Weaver, the Bop is a kind of a combination sonnet + song. like a Shakespearean sonnet, it introduces, discusses, and then solves (or fails to solve) a problem.

My Bop:

 

Her eyes shone a tear, her lips quivered with fear, down her face ran a scar like a spear,

Her leg bruised, her hand bleeding, she felt a shooting pain,

Cringing, she looked for a face, Alas! but  in vain,

There on the bloodied floor, a shred of her mother’s scarf  and her brother, so dear,

The remnants of her home – a leg of her only doll,

The hinge of a door and a yellow wall.

 

“This cannot go on, the whole world’s watching”, her daddy had said

 

Bombs, weapons, missiles in the starry sky,

The lucky ones cried, the injured writhed in pain,

The city of rose*, now withered by war, full of debris, is what does remain,

Over the rubble, over the corpses, she wondered why,

“Friends”, “Neighbors”, “Developed Nations”, “Super-Powers, “The Islamic State”,

“Religion” they blamed or was it “The Regime”?

No difference her young eyes could see,  both the same did seem,

One buried her mother, the other her kid brother, sealing her dim fate.

 

“This cannot go on, the whole world’s watching”, her daddy had said.

 

Let not the children die, Let not a nation fade,

Let all  together stand, with all their glory and might,

And against this violence and insanity, let’s put up a united fight,

If Peace be the only goal, can truce not be made?

Oh Brilliant Minds, Oh Wise Leaders, Pray rise and shine,

The little girl’s waiting, while you drink and dine.

 

“This cannot go on, the whole world’s watching”, her daddy had said.

 

 

*The city of rose as in the city of the Damask Rose

Note on this poetry type “The Bop”: Like a song, it relies on refrains and repetition. In the basic Bop Poem, a six line stanza introduces the problem and is followed by a one-line refrain. The next eight line stanza discusses and develops the problem and is again followed by a 1 line refrain. Then another six line stanza concludes the problem and is again followed by a refrain.

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