The Insurgency

It's like imagining the stained glass
crashed
and the mosaic floor
smashed;
the perfect solemn light
that once led your
youthful eye looking
to the heavens--destroyed,
The spiral markings on the floor that
welcomed you as a crawling child
to the mysteries from your
mother's womb,
to the family tomb--
blotted out with
sand,
swirling and unstoppable--
and you wonder--

Is your identity effaced?
The self erased?
When the things you felt
because of the culture you were dealt
were displaced?
Or defaced?

Time crashes in
on your timelessness,
needs sucks up to your nourishment,
want crowds your mental wealth,
dignity of man ascends to
lean on your spiritual health, your ladder
no climax above this fleshly hell,
learn this well--

this edifice of faith
was fairy cake
meant to melt eventually,
beautifully decorated,
but your truth
must be
with you.
Decide (deicide) if you break free
to  reality or
let your umbilical
be your noose
and drop like a stone unborn
to the watching world;

Because your life is a burning candle in
a stiff breeze,
dampening your wit by degrees
and a rock or a hard place is your only bed--
sleep well.

You wrestle with angels on the morrow.

No Place To Lay His Head

The shops were closed
and before dusk
the temple was vacant
as not
since the war.

As many masjids
as there were hours
saw broken glass,
or threats.
And people feared.

And the pens weren't
stilled,
and neither were swords,
as some struck with letters,
and others, firebombs.

As, a thousand miles away,
villages disappeared
in a blasphemy
more vulgar than any
comic's art;

While a writer
tasted the first of a thousand lashes.
As innocent as a prophet
and clothed with the same flesh,

twisting with nowhere to lay his head.
While I lay safe in my hole
as birds in their nests...
sharpening my quill.