Perhaps I will be
Arrested for writing this.
The President could
Put on a grand show.
Maybe I could take the blame
For peace-loving death?
It should be easy.
There are killings every day.
Just pin one on me.
Perhaps I will be
Arrested for writing this.
The President could
Put on a grand show.
Maybe I could take the blame
For peace-loving death?
It should be easy.
There are killings every day.
Just pin one on me.
Could God’s devout assail with flame a room
Of helpless innocents whose only crime:
Descent from their inferno without time
To don a hooded veil, so to their doom
Were sent? What god commands her to a tomb
Half sunk in earth, and rent with stone by grime
Stained hands, a helpless girl? What paradigm–
That knew the violation of her womb,
Then learnt this travesty her god offends!?
Whose crime could be the punishment of rape?
What god is this? What votary attends?
While gawkers ’round the world in silence gape?
If God gives love, redemption, hope, and breath,
I name him Satan, feignèd god of death.
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The name of this god
is known to all by his deeds;
though few dare name him.
I saw and I believed and then I knew;
As brick and mortar fell, and glass and steel;
And blood and flesh and fire, mien, and weal,
And hope, and dream, and aspiration slew;
And friendship, love and heart, and sky once blue
Now green with envy, angry red with zeal
Of hate, of lie, of wound no lie can heal,
And speculation knowingly untrue.
I heard, I disbelieved and then I thought:
How typical that supposition grew
So cravenly away from where it ought
To rest; from certainty that, shining through
This calumny, these wailing filth have wrought
This death–these filth who hide from what is true.
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To all those who died,
Or who lost the ones they love:
I dedicate this.
To those left behind:
I wish it could be more than
A few empty words.