Prompt 12
(Write about a gathering with others.)
The harvest was ripe and gold
What a gathering behold
The sky was gay, and colors merry
A romantic pink, a scarlet cherry
All gathered to celebrate
Sweat of toil but fickle fate
Had something else in store
Shrieks of pain, cries of gore
Rain had showered them with grain
Bullets fired shooting pain
Groups of innocents huddled in fear
To jump in wells or swallow a tear
Children sobbed and clung to breasts
Mother’s stricken, men were prest
But Dyer had kept on firing
His selfish heart, ne’er tiring
Like a bloodbath to pour
Silence resounding ever more
Rivers of shame, of ghastly pain
Would not claim such unjust gain
Blooming blood of innocents slain
Booming guns, horrific refrain
No matter what time, what the place
This hardened brutal truth I face
’twas nothing but a glaring preface
Of a bloody
heartless
massacre
***The refrence here is to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13th April, 1919
Beautiful it was as if I was seeing the Massacre happening right in fron of my eye.
Thank you. I do hope I did justice to the prompt and the poem.
Even before I read beyond line 8, I had Jallianwala Bagh in mind… Even I have pondered several times on their final moments… I like how you have immortalised it in verse. Well done!
I hoped to portray the heartlessness of the massacre. Truly inhumane. I am not Amrita Pritam, but I try my best.☺️
Though i never read about the massacre, i could Feel the fear and horror the people must have experienced. The imagery is so vivid.
This is a vivid account of a terrible tragedy.
Thank you. You are one of the regular reviewers who comments on my poems every year.☺️