Ryo Cain
Per. 07
Clouds
of War: Powerful Poetry
Poetry
is a powerful experience. Through the rhymes of great poetry there is always an
important lesson to be found, and an eloquent tale to be told through its
verses. Poetry is literature in its most striking and provoking form. The
emotions transferred and all wrapped together in an immaculate assemblage of
communication forms the strongest bond between the author and the reader, and
by simply using poetry to convey the relationship between what the poet is
experiencing and what the reader needs to hear, the emotion is made far more
apparent through the verse written. Poetry allows the words on the page to come
to life, and reflects the feeling the poet is trying to demonstrate on the
reader. Sometimes when there is no way to explain a certain sentiment, poetry
can permit the listener to draw their own conclusions. No matter through which
lens the poem is viewed, the furtherance of the words and verses are a method
to goad the deepest emotions inside the reader, and to teach them more about
themselves than anything. Poetry is an involvement. It is a commitment for both
the poet and the reader, and an adherence between them. A promise is in every
verse, one made silent by both affiliates. This promise is not made to one
another, but rather to the self. It is a promise to keep the story sacred, and
listen to the lesson the poem holds. Clouds
of War, and original poem by a brave man living in a war-torn Kuwait in the
1970’s holds all the meaning a poem should. The author, Samah Kalakh, recalls
the deaths of his family members and the destruction of his home by the Iraqi
Taliban in a short, but to the point reflection of war. It is a dark,
depressing account depicting not only the effects the war had on his own life,
but all conflict in the world. This poem, with all the meaning it holds,
exemplifies the sadness and destruction in our world today and is a great
representation of powerful poetry made straight from the heart.
As
far as the emotion of the poem goes, I was initially shocked and depressed
after reading Clouds of War for the
first time. I knew nothing of the author, but I knew that the sadness and agony
of battle always takes a heavy toll on the lives of those involved and never
ends happily. War is a destructive and ongoing process which leaves a scar on
the lifecycle of the Earth, and devastates the natural order of the people.
“Heartache, misery, endless tears Unheard cries of a broken heart” (Kalakh,
1-2) Everything is effected by war one way or another. Directly or indirectly,
all war can be seen to have a consequence on the world and its peoples.
Conflict arises and violence breaks out, and before long the war is over and
the people are left to deal with the scraps of their lives strewn about the
frontline. Samah Kalakh knows this well. Samah’s family was killed in the
relentless barrage of the Taliban on Kuwait’s capital, and as I later found
out, Clouds of War was written to help cope and raise awareness of the
struggle the citizens of Kuwait were facing. When I looked at the nature of the
poem, I noticed that it took the aspect of a father. I assumed that Samah was
an old man that had a wife, and had lost a daughter to whom which he was
referring to in the poem. I researched the conflict of the Gulf War and
followed a bibliography about Samah, and as it turns out, Samah had a seven
year old baby girl that was burned alive in an oil fire when the Taliban bombed
the capital. At this point in the project I felt horrible. The poem lost all
luster and painted a dark format of life and death to pain and suffering. I wanted
to cry. I related to Samah’s agony. The poem was much more upsetting once I
knew what Samah was actually referring to, and the feeling of grief set in. I put
myself there, watching my own-born daughter dying right in front of me and not
being able to do anything about it. I missed Samah’s daughter, and I didn’t
even know her name. I didn’t want to anymore. “I hear words of love you
whispered to me Though it seems forever ago” (Kalakh, 9-10) A home is defined
by family, and a broken family fractures a home. When a home is destroyed, the
same happens to the family. The loss of a loved one can devastate the lives
surrounding it. “I close my eyes only to see In a starry night, your eyes glow”
(Kalakh, 11-12) Samah mourned for the loss of his daughter for many years, even
after the war was over and the Iraqi’s pulled out of Kuwait. It is a true
story, one Samah has always been reluctant to tell, but it is also in the sense
of all war. Every battle is fought with sacrifices, and whoever walks away with
the least amount of losses makes it to the next round. Neither side wins, just
one does better than the other and claims victory. At this point in the project
I felt sick, not so much for just Samah’s daughter anymore, but for all the
people of the world who have felt the detrimental effects of war. Battle
forgoes many steps, each one playing into the next. There is always the
cornerstone laid, usually a crumbling lie on the verge of being exposed. On
this the frameworks of peace are built upon, because peace is always reflected
in the image of the victor and erected with the blood and bone of the enemy.
Pain and suffering sweep across the combat zone to end the war. Cities lost,
families torn apart, lives ended and destroyed; all shattered by the conflict
over something as meek as oil. I read a recent article about Samah Kalakh and
found that he is currently a leading speaker for peace in Kuwait, and has
lectured all around the Middle East protesting unnecessary war. He gains most
of his support from his poetry, and Clouds
of War is his most convincing piece. With literature as potent as this
poem, I’m sure everyone can at least take a step towards world peace and
understanding. That’s how powerful Samah Kalakh’s Clouds of War really is.
As
I investigated deeper into my research of Samah Kalakh’s life, I found out more
and more about the conflict in Kuwait. As a small, barely developed country,
Kuwait has been under a lot of pressure not just from neighboring countries,
but from the oil economy too. Kuwait produces about 267 bn bbl’s of oil every
year, amounting to almost fifteen percent of the world’s oil reserve. This
makes Kuwait a prime target for the more ambitious countries seeking oil
wealth. War is imminent in these conditions. A small country with supreme oil
excess surrounded by power-hungry nations is a recipe for disaster. On August 2nd,
1990, Iraq launched a massive attack on Kuwait and gained control of the
northern oil fields. Kuwait was defenseless. They had no military built up, and
with the Iraqi’s gaining more and more momentum every day, Samah knew that he
and his family needed to flee from their home before matters got worse. With
nowhere else to go, Samah took his wife and his daughter with what little food
and resources they could carry to a shelter promised along the border of Iraq.
Highway 80, a stretch of road crossing the border from Kuwait into Iraq, is
where almost two-hundred thousand Palestinian Kuwaitis attempted to escape from
their war-torn country. Samah and his family were among the crowd traveling
across this road when all Hell broke loose. Only three-thousand make it out
alive. Now dubbed the “Highway of Death”, Highway 80 is where the Iraqi forces
made on last desperate attempt to destroy Kuwait. With the Taliban retreat,
Saddam Hussein knew that they had lost. He cut resources and troops going into the
warzone, and put into motion his “Scorched Earth” tactic with what little
forces he had left. The Iraqi’s burnt down every city they could on the way
out, including the oil fields and Samah’s home. Then, in blatant violation of
the laws of war and with ruthless sadist carnage, bombed the entire stretch of
Highway 80. With no warning, nowhere to go, and in utter panic and sheer ruin,
Samah fell to the ground as explosions rained down upon the road. Everything
was burnt immediately. The bombs were so hot that the ground itself turned to
glass, and the vehicles along the highway were reduced to ash. Samah was
knocked out in the eruptions, and when he awoke to the smoldering wasteland,
found a charred shell of his daughter laying before him. The pain, the feeling
of hopelessness, the confusion of it all, made me feel hate for all the
violence in the world more than anything. I was there, in the midst of all the
anguish and suffering, and I reacted the same way Samah did: I cried. I didn’t
want it to be true. The power of the poem spoke to me on a personal level, even
more so with the full story at hand. It seemed surreal at first, but with no
way to deny the truth, I had to accept it. I had to be part of it. I was now a
Palestinian from Kuwait who had just lost his daughter. I had seen the fires of
war. War had always been an impersonal entity, something that has to be done
and is always viewed from afar. The after-effects are always glorified to help
the bystanders forget the unseen horrors of it all. But Clouds of War is personal. It is an account, something that really
happened whether the reader chooses to accept it or not, and is just a small
peek inside the real revulsions of war. I now understood the heartbreak Samah
was feeling. “They couldn’t hear your desperate scream Do they know what does
it mean? To be so young and have a dream Just like you my glorious queen”
(Kalakh, 13-14) Samah’s account of his daughter is just one story of the many
who lost a loved family member on the “Highway of Death”. The realization that
the conflict portrayed in Clouds of War is
just one of the countless wartime poems just goes to show how much violence and
destruction there is in the world. There always has, and most likely always
will be, war on Earth. Nothing can stop battle, only delay it. Setting aside
differences to create “peace” is a temporary fix. Sooner or later all those
differences build up, and then the war fought is much worse than it should have
been. When the dust settles and the fighting is over, those who tried to
prevent war suffer the most. The civilians and innocent eyewitnesses are left
with the mess of the battlefront. War expends and takes all, and demands sacrifices
from the people to feed the next conflict. Samah’s daughter was a victim of
war, and a ransom paid for all the violence. War is a detrimental ruler of
those who wish to see it end. “But clouds of war are just so merciless It rains
death on flowers and weeds” (Kalakh, 19-20) War effects those who give in to
it, and those who should have never been involved at all. The lust for death is
never quenched for the soldiers fighting or the entity of war. War is a
powerful value. Some would argue that war is necessary, but I am sure Samah
would not agree. No matter how it is viewed, war is an entity that has always
been and will always be. It brings darkness and sadness into the lives of those
it effects, and with the sacrifices and losses it demands war has always been
something to fear. No one enjoys war. It is simply something that happens, and
is completely unavoidable. This Earth we live on has always been built up
through conflict, and the labors demanded by war are harsh and unyielding. “The
days, the month, all of the years Since our home was torn apart” (Kalakh, 2-3)
Samah had to give his home, his comfortable life, and his own daughter to war.
Samah simply paid the price for a battle he didn’t want. The idea that war is
fought for a reason is justifiable, but I am sure that Samah would not agree
with the validations Iraq had for invading Kuwait. Nonetheless, some of the
greatest poetry of all time was born out of the ashes of war, and Clouds of War is no exception. Poetry
explains and elucidates the esoteric profile of battle, and allows the reader
and inside look at what really happens better than any other source. First-hand
accounts of the tragedy put together with the literal flow of verses creates a
perfect in-touch experience to share information and emotion at the same time.
Poetry is the equilibrium for great writing, and the efficient communicator of
wartime stories.
Now
that I had a solid background to the poem, I could start relating Clouds of War to all fighting in the
world. Samah captures the loss of his daughter in such a way that it becomes a
perfect example of human hostility towards one another while still allowing it
to be deciphered in the sense of battle’s grim corporeality. The horrors of war
are atrocious and often unspeakable, and by making a subtle poem about just one
instance of it Samah has revealed the truly staggering dismay that is battle.
Samah lost his one and only daughter, the love of his life is gone forever
because of something as stupid as lust for oil wealth. Samah can never get her
back, and as hard as he tries the entity of war will never return her to him.
Is that not what war does to everyone? War comes without warning and takes what
is loved the most from the people it possesses. Then, just as fast as it came,
war departs leaving a wake of destruction. Those who have just lost their most
valued possession, their one love in life, are left empty and alone. The
destruction is immeasurable. The neutral are damaged more than anyone. Those
who have died have been lost in unnecessary vain, and those who are left behind
have to carry out the sadness and longing left behind. Most will never get
their life back on track. Some will never recover from the heartache of loss.
Samah Kalakh has accepted the fact that his daughter is gone forever, but is
far from mending his broken spirit. Clouds
of War is an account and elucidation for conflict and warfare in our world
on an all-encompassing interpretation, but it is also an apology meant just for
Samah himself. It is his way of saying goodbye to his daughter, and a closer
for his sorrow. “Please don’t you cry, my dearest dear” (Kalakh, 23-24) If
Samah could read his poem to his little girl, I’m sure he would. It is his
farewell. “I never meant to leave you fatherless Never wished to see your heart
bleed” (Samah Kalakh, 17-18) The tragedy of it all is captured beautifully in Clouds of War. The pain and suffering
felt by those who have lost a family member in a familiar way, and those who
have died in the carnage and disarray of battle. It is an apology for all of
it. What was done is done, and everyone has to move on sometime. Samah speaks
for all those who have ever lost a loved one to the greed of war and helps them
take comfort in knowing no one is at fault for it. War happens, simply
disregarding the fact that it does is ignorant. Samah is just trying to bear
the sadness of his loss. “Don’t you cry my baby girl! Your loving dad is always
here” (Kalakh, 21-22) Sadly, Samah’s baby girl is just considered another
source of nourishment for war, already used up and forgotten about by the
entity of violence. Even after reading through the poem a few more times and
presenting it to my mother to get her opinion, I’m still unsure about how I
feel. After all that research and evaluation, I still need some time to
reflect. As of now I just feel depressed. The wars of history all seem to lead
to the same place, why can’t we stop it? Samah’s daughter didn’t merit death,
no one in war ever deserves to die. At the same time I know that clashing
opinions can never be resolved any other way. World peace is not out of the
question, but it will take more understanding and a lot more time. Poems like
Samah Kalakh’s are the first step towards total cease-fire between all nations,
and an accord of goodwill between all peoples.
All
in all, I’m sure that everyone can agree that war is a terrible tragedy and
that conflict between nations can be solved in calmer, more non-violent ways.
The destruction of battle and the sadness of loss and heartbreak that follow it
are never worth the spoils of war. Everyone thinks that this is their own
personal world and everyone else is just living in it, but that is not a true
way to live. All people need to get along with one another and share this
Earth, because that is what peace is. Peace is something to strive for, and a
perfect world may not happen in my own lifetime, but I can still hope for it.
There is a void between the violence of war and the serenity of peace, and
people live somewhere in between the two. Sometimes people move closer to peace
as a whole, sometimes people fall short of unity and tumble back into pain and
suffering. No matter what the final outcome may be, reading powerful literature
like Samah Kalakh’s Clouds of War gives
me hope. Peace is achievable, and with it in sight people will never give up on
it.
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