Tag Archives: humanity

ISA

ISA

who here
at this time, in
this place,
truly believes
that Isa was
a prophet, truly
a divine messenger?

that was seminal about him
(peace be upon him)
was not that
he saved souls but
spoke for the poor, spoke
against Empire
performed miracles, cured
the sick
        raised the dead

less that
he preached his own divinity
than suffered
    for humanity

less that history
has him exalted, than
the evil
     of our nature
                   claimed as
his
   text, in
his name?

عيسى (عليه السلام) نبي الله الواحد الأحد

POET IN THE RAIN

POET IN THE RAIN

the rain sizzles
poet splitters
a few syllables
dissolves, melts

flows somewhere
as liquids are wont to

meanwhile
(for a billion meanwhiles)
the cosmos carries on
business
      as usual

same old laws
that birthed us, did
us in
   upon which we
came to depend

unless
     things changed, shifted gear,
found a different trajectory
whole new
direction

could
     have fooled us

no one around to document, observe
no one left to tell

WHAT A WAR IT WAS

WHAT A WAR IT WAS

what a war it was!
existential:
    you alone, standing
against humanity

a brutal battle, which
Praised be God you won
with your
       devilish déception
heavenly weapons and
sublime technology

annihilating everything extraneous
              alien to
your big picture
outside
    core prophecy

returning the species
back

   to the Stone Age
those few straggling remnants
you suffered to survive

what a war it was!
down
     in the edicts
   since Cain
    first slew Abel
back at the blood dawn of time

PRAY CONTINUE

PRAY CONTINUE

I am badly wounded
haemorrhaging everything

waiting for
your coup de grâce

drenched in blood
surrounded by
scraps and
pieces of what was
once humanity

bits of bone
embedded in the
brain-spattered altar
in this place of shelter

I am not quite dead yet
so pray continue

lest
I bear witness

still a mathematical possibility
I might survive

TARGET

TARGET

you talk the stealth
of first strike
they won’t
know we
are coming

and so we both fire
though no one is coming

this beautiful
death technology
such a
shame,
if put to waste

what use being born
with a price
on my head
target on
my back

and Einstein’equation
demanding final vindication

PERIGEE

PERIGEE

I saw him
last day of primary school
for him
riding his bicycle,
exultant
   down that
street
in Parow

next year
high school
a big brainy
boy now

Mars
at its perigree
his head
full of
Ray Bradbury

nothing in the night sky
redder or
more relevant
than our brother
world with
its dust and its
oxides and canals
and
perennial
alien menace
(though
in Mr Bradbury’s
book it
is we
who colonize you
to our shame and
shock and
terror
(the tribes of the plains
know that
story through and
                     through)

cycling full
of joy
     leaving past
behind
for future

wonder
what come the end
of his days

what of this
he foreseen
what
the one
    foreseen
might possibly remember

this is a poem
about Parow

a God-forsaken place
jam-packed with churches

some of which, it must
be said, has
been said,

have needle sharp spires
pointing perpendicular
up at
the stars
       and the planets

Mars
    singled out high above
red
   as ever

something knowing
about that look
             if this
world of
dreams, and fears,
and desires
    and secrets

could ever look
         ever feel at all

HARARI

HARARI

the grasses
of the meadows
shall feed us

no more
   savannah hunter-gatherer

no more
child of exodus
waiting impatiently upon
promised manna

spores
    from a far
           flung star

holding the germ of a
far-flung idea
                    fit

for
purpose

unless
   off the track did deviate
as to
     what
         we were, aee
made of

who
we are