Wednesday, April 6, 2011

avenge

THE ARTICLE:
"Afghans Avenge Florida Koran Burning, Killing 12"
by Enayat Najafizada and Rod Nordland
April 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.html

THE POEM:
avenge

mullah mullah mullahs
at the head of a crowd
taking off the heads
of another

an eye for an eye gets
lost in translation across
the universe turns into
a book for twelve bodies
a cartoon for four

too much wordtalking
from illiterate hands
cradling hate and tasting
triggers on the tips of
foreign tongues

flush and
fourteen piles of ash in Afghanistan
where fathers once stood
after men meshed Muhammad
with their own waste
in Cuba

the death of words
is the death of people
the way to avenge either
is the same

and vengeance knows no bounds
of geography

mullah mullah mullah
in my language
in your language
words are
such sorrow
in the making

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