SNIPER

SNIPER

Bullets pound my shelter

My heart pounds as well

The jungle life is certainly not easy

Among trees, in caves I dwell

 

“Boundaryless” is this conflict

I am surrounded from every side

No rules and regulations of warfare

Are set here to which we abide

 

It seems as though we are fearless

No on realises how scared we are

Its been days, it been months

But from the end it is very far

 

My rifle is at my side

A sniper is my role in this play

A deafening bang it makes when I shoot

A nightmare from which I cannot get away

 

Hiden within the depths of the forest

Among the treetops I stand

I cannot express the difficulties here

But I can say it isn’t grand

 

Avoiding bullets and grenades

I jump from many trees

I attack, leaping over trenches

I sail o’er many seas

 

There’s nothing more shocking than my sniper

Nothing more damaging than what it makes

When I pull out my sniper

Many lives are at stake

 

Everything is silent

Throughout the night through the enemy lines

I receive my order through radio

And watch for enemy signs

 

I move in discreet

No one knows I am here

But I know they will be expecting me

I am their nightmare, I am their fear

 

I load and I aim

Looking for a victim unaware

I have to do this ‘murder’ for it’s either his life or mine

Every killing I cannot bear

 

 

I shoot and I regret

My hands start to tremble

I must move out of here and find another foe

But I only fall and I only stumble

 

The situation here is hectic

From the machine guns I must escape

The turrets start their chanting of bullets

The helicopters I must evade

 

I must get away from the sentries

I must retreat from aware infantry

I must seek my next war victim

And watch for other snipers in the trees

 

The mortars make their entry

The rifles open fire into the bushes

I am near but must flee

Checking they can’t hear my boots sloshes

 

My boots sloshes in the mud

My stumping o’er the roots

My tripping over shrubs

And the thudding of my boots

 

Something tears through my body

Blood trickles down my sides

I think I’ve been hit

The pain soars and it glides

 

I’ve been shot down like I shot the other

I’m down with immense pain

I’m finished now what use is there in this fighting?

From war what did I gain?

 

Maybe it is karma

Maybe karma has shot me down

For all the killings I have done for war

Whatever goes around comes around

 

I struggle to reach my radio that lies feet behind me

I scream as my flesh tears and my skin peels

The pain is intolerable, the pain is excruciating

Maybe the last pain I’ll ever feel

 

Slowly I see everything blur

The sounds of the battery fire die down

After the sound I die down

This war, my life, it has blown… 

--Diloshaan Sripathy