Perceptions

Saif Ataya
2010 / 1 / 26

Perceptions

There,
Sitting next to the wall.
Every day drinking tea,
With juice, coffee, and cigars.
Words into smoke and eroding the news.
Biography and pride of ancient history,
That with terrorism, that goes on with the Jihad of
Plans that go too far,
Secrets briefly analyzed.
Sadness and frustration all blending together.
Destruction everywhere…

“Sorry,” he said.
“I am with youth outreached.
Men to crawl and the Jihad drive with
rides in his speech-making, the
tea which has cooled...”

******

Explosives,
booby traps,
and weapons of mass.
Interviews all the time, channels dancing in delight.
Smoke fills the place of ashes,
dust, cigarettes, and fights.


He asks, “Who are you?”
I had said I am a being.
“I eat, sleep and have feelings as well.”
“What country do you belong?”

I replied, “Irbil from Baghdad, Fallujah.
From New York, London, Chicago.
I am an infant. A man, a woman, and teen,
Plants and spirits I am the vast.”
“Of whom are you called, oh so and so?”
I felt I was in a station of investigation.
Trial, tension, and a loaded weight.

“Reiterate the question.”
Between certainty and outmost doubt,
I had told him,
“I am Amir and my brothers George and Omar,
The other Othman, and another cluster of Michael and Luckman.
I m longing, and I am the book.
I am a human!”

*****

“A myth!” he shouts.
“A word, a lie and an illusion!”
I remarked, “We are a carpet of patterned colors.
Christmas and church bells.
Mosque, temple, and synagogues.
No doubt.
All calling The Almighty.
The absolute being,
The boats tend faith,
Peace and conciliation.
Distance,
Abreast,
Spaces in which we all belong...”

Passing the crossings, the dead reap.
The elderly, women, and terrified children.
Tingling with anger, he had said,
“This is the Jihad, the pride of nations!
The bridge to the heavens,
Not suicide!
Liberating the country from the darkness!
We shall expel the infidels!
We are in paradise.
And they shall burn in hell fire...”

To which that, I spoke,
“The deployment of arable land?
You, to the paradise of the figs,
Olive trees, honey, and rivers!
Violence and crimes,
With a whip in blood and tears!
No, this is suicidal!

Oh prince of defeat!
Prince of terrorism!
Destruction and marginalization,
Decay decorated with belts of wrong and faith!
The devil playing with words,
Explosives…. explosives!
False testimonies,
Whether wrong or right,
Humans died without your shame to rights!

*****

It was a scream.
“He is a spy!
This betrayal! A disbeliever that has
Stepped in atheism! That is a shame!”
Crying,
Weeping, and amplifying the noise.
Shouts and riots, “No mercy!” They cry.
But the mercy of the knife,
A final bow,
The body disappears
No news, no tears.
But fear,
And the sliced corpse is out on the waste,
No testifiers?



Saif Ataya
January 24, 2010
[email protected]




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