Sultan
Schahriar beheaded each morning she whom he had slept
with the night before. He knew no
virgin or woman could be trusted.
Rights were not violated nor license taken in
disposing of what was no longer of use. Another un-elected
sovereign reigns today and the thief of
In the late 8th century
in the reign of the great Caliph, Haroun al Raschid, stories were told of the legendary Sultan Schahriar whose bloodletting, despite public outcry,
subsided only after he became enchanted with the imaginative story telling of
Scheherazade. The exotic, the
other, the fabulous merged with invention, woven narratives, psychological
sophistication. Twelve hundred
years later no atrocity can stave off apathy. The corpses mount this night and on a
thousand others while the living no longer yearn for
the grand vizier’s eldest daughter. It is not the lore but gore, distress,
injustice and perpetual violence that’s entertainment.
The Morning
After
There
are no children
Playing
in the sand
Only
fear and dissent
Not
yet grown
No
cries of joy or hunger
Mingling
in the wind
Merely
collective unrest
To
gag, quell
No
tripping, running, scuffling feet
Drooling,
spitting, wetting
But
dirty linen
That
must be changed
No
body cold, worn, bruised
Put down day and night
Just
limbs to inspect, separate, and unbury
Should
they make the morning news.
In the heat
of the night
It’s
time to turn in
Cut
you off
Forget
what?
I’ve
worked hard to ignore you
Overcome
lust with apathy
And
intend to sleep well
You,
laid low and strung up,
Have
earned my contempt
And
I my pills
I
shed my quilt
This
evening until dawn
I
will not wake
Do
not dream of the desert or the pump
Your resting place or how you got there
Relinquish
justice as a souvenir
Trust
your body’s absence
And
believe in the golden silence
Of your head upon my shelf.