On 1 March 2003 the Ban Landmines Campaign Nepal held a landmines-themed student poetry competition in the nation's capital, Kathmandu. Following are the four winning entries. Click here for a Word version of the poems. For more information please contact Shirish Pandey at wodes@wlink.com.np.
First Place
Looking at the disrupted marital bond of the daughter in law,
Breaking the dreams of the Orphan children
O Youth!
I presently keep myself waiting for the enlightenment in you
Our lives mingled with soil,
Our paths grown up with terrorism,
Now-a-days in the garb of terrorism,
They are busy in stripping the bodice of mothers,
By scattering the gunpowder,
You say you want to save the soul,
O Saviour!
If so, make a pledge turning towards the mother,
Now death celebrates no more the full Moon in the tears,
Yet I see now,
The bombardment going on in Afghanistan,
Iraq digging of its mines,
The bay of Bangal in veil,
O, You Old,
Possessed by the spirit of youth,
Ang Sang Sukis keep waiting for you,
Tashlima Nashrims are awaiting you,
Let the world ride the horse of imperialism,
We keep trust in you.
O, Lord Buddha, forget not,
Now spring stinks with gunpowder,
The white gegion is lost in the sky,
Do you Know?
The sister Ujeli smiles no more,
Swallow is said to have undone its own nest,
while lamenting,
The men smearing the selves,
With the ashes of arrogance
Have set to rape their own sisters,
O my lard Buddha!
It is beyond the range of possibility,
To write and publish,
About Yashodharas being stripped off,
And Rahuls not spared to be in tatters,
Lo and behold!
How long thou blow the trumpets of thy Prestige,
While bearing the identity with existence lost?
O Youth!
The Writing instruments of thy brother,
lie shattered,
Somewhere tunnels get exploded,
In the barrels of the gun,
And ambush is set up somewhere,
Why dost thou become dumb?
Birds are said to be warned against flight,
When the blood boils in stream,
In the periphery of Lord Buddha,
Dost thou know about it?
Declared Undeclared curfew is imposed these days,
On the melodies of the minstrels.
Tell me, dost life imply living with terror?
If not, behold,
Solution lies in the womb of the problem,
Buddha in they conscious self can stop the landmines,
And can push the arrogant beings into the nether world,
O youths,
Do not despair,
Like the homeless pedestrians,
Country is no more the shelter of the yellow beings
City is no more the shelter of the savages,
The conceit rules the country,
Hence, it sinks into sound sleep,
In the dense jungles of Sarawak and Bornyo,
In the deserts of Kosovo and Kargil,
When the black cloud spread all along,
O youths,
Thou should blow the conch of Lord Shiva,
So that, no one can pretend to be asleep,
The sleepy beings should awake,
And so trees should walk ahead,
And Panchasheel must reach,
Hence, O youth delay not,
I see the creativity on thy shoulders
for the peace,
I behold the enlightened Buddha on thy face.
Written by: Shankar K.C.
Class: 9
School: Emerald Secondary School
Second Place
Lo and behold ! I see a grave being dug up for someone,
Stony hearths set to cremate someone on he pyre.
I hear not the manlyness in the Landmines,
But the dreadful snarls of he death of the poor,
I hear the contempt and condemnation towards it,
From the terrified and painsticker hearts of the infants, youths and olds,
The living lives of the man of the world,
Have bean buried in these mines,
But lo I behold,
The trembling hands of the youths,
The terror of the hearts quickening,
The glimpse of brotherhood,
I find myself,
caught in the noose of this very landmines,
The whole world embodies in skepticism.
But in the eyes of the youths
Suffused with tears
Which dream about the funeral procession of death the dream of the procession of landmines,
Merely the dreams.
Hence the voice of the youths is reverberating
A few, hopeful hands are rising,
From land of the dead and landmines,
By driving away from the pathetic screams and wailings of the accursed wars,
The able youths of today,
Are grunting with the desire,
To apply the ointment for the bodies,
Shattered in the Landmines.
Hence, for the conversion of the beautiful creation,
Out of the dreams into awareness,
The resisting forces are emerging,
Against the RDX,
Not with standing the death,
But hands are united with living smiles,
For seeking the bright future in terror stricken world,
Out side the tunnel.
Hey! the Leaders of the Landmines,
The youths are out in the rush against you.
Written by: Lorina Sthapit
Class: 9
School : Holy Land Int's School
Third Place
"Bomb"
I hear what I have heard not before,
water pot has also turned put to be a bomb now.
Apparently, doll is a bomb and rocket is a bomb too.
Also banner is a bomb and socket is a bomb.
Wherever the letter lies about,
There one hears the explosion of pressure cooker bomb.
A sweet splits with splintering clash.
The petrol bomb is the bus set the travelers on flame.
Progress is so much ahead that bucket blows as a bomb.
After a time will the lantern be the bomb.
When shall there be peace spread in Nepal
All the utensils shall be soon the bomb sells.
Bombs after bombs blossom and blossom
Houses and offices in flames fly and in ashes fall,
Hard is for us to hurl out the red blooded revolution.
Hard is for the nation to sustain the shells of the bomb
Plant no more the bombs at the cost of tears.
cover no more the landmines at crossroads.
sling once and once more the song of peace.
By bumping down the dreadful war,
This very song will pave the path of peace and prosperity.
Written by: Prabesh Paudel
Class: 8
School: Nobel Academy
Fourth Place
For days and days since the past,
Buddha,
With red blooded bread
Being concealed in his pan,
If found fleeting,
With grief in eyes,
And tears retained,
From flowing out of the cracked heart.
For days and days since the past,
Panchasil,
Has lost itself in the smoke of the gunpowder,
And
The peace,
Being entangled,
In the web of the landmines,
Is being stifled and stifled,
suffocated and suffocated.
Hence,
For days and days since the past
Lumbini, speechless.
Stands upright on and on,
Swoyambhu, blindfolded,
Gets himself seated down and down.
For days and days since the past,
The state,
Being set on flames,
and the humanity,
Being scratched
with the hands of ones own brothers,
For days and days since the past,
many marital bonds,
Being blown up
A few,
Have been crippled,
and the state
Is seen being sick.
Thus,
After many many days
After many many dark nights
A lamp has been lit.
A hope has popped up,
The country is about to be cared.
Because
The hands of the youths
Set up with a vengeance,
Against the Landmines.
Written by: Chanchal Maharajan
Class: 8
School: Siddharatha Secondary School
