Taking a break for a few days. A temperamental mood is forcing me to figure out my place in everything. In the meantime, here's a poem from J.D. McClatchy
"Jihad"
A contrail's white scimitar unsheathes
Above the tufts of anti-aircraft fire.
Before the mullah's drill on righteousness,
Practice rocks are hurled at chicken-wire
Dummies of tanks with silhouetted infidels
Defending the nothing both sides fight over
In God's name, a last idolatry
Of boundaries. The sirens sound: take cover.
He has forced the night and day, the sun and moon,
Into your service. By His leave, the stars
Will shine to light the path that He has set
You to walk upon. His mercy will let
You slay who would blaspheme or from afar
Defile His lands. Glory is yours, oh soon.
Of the heart. Of the tongue. Of the sword. The holy war
Is waged against the self at first, to raze
The ziggurat of sin we climb upon
To view ourselves, and next against that glaze
The enemies of faith will use to disguise
Their words. Only then, and at the caliph's nod,
Are believers called to drown in blood the people
Of an earlier book. There is no god but God.
He knows the day of death and sees how men
Will hide. Who breaks His covenant is cursed,
Who slights His revelations will live in fire.
He has cast aside the schemer and the liar
Who mistake their emptiness of heart for a thirst
That, to slake, the streams of justice descend.
Ski-masked on videotape, the skinny martyr
Reads his manifesto. He's stilted, nervous.
An hour later, he's dropped at the market town,
Pays his fare, and climbs aboard the bus.
Strapped to his chest is the death of thirty-four
-Plus his own- "civilians" on their way
To buy or sell what goods they claim are theirs,
Unlike our fates, which are not ours to say.
Under the shade of swords lies paradise.
Whom you love are saved with you, their souls
In His hand. And who would want to return to life
Except to be killed again? Who can thrive
On the poverty of this world, its husks and holes?
His wisdom watches for each sacrifice.
"Jihad"
A contrail's white scimitar unsheathes
Above the tufts of anti-aircraft fire.
Before the mullah's drill on righteousness,
Practice rocks are hurled at chicken-wire
Dummies of tanks with silhouetted infidels
Defending the nothing both sides fight over
In God's name, a last idolatry
Of boundaries. The sirens sound: take cover.
He has forced the night and day, the sun and moon,
Into your service. By His leave, the stars
Will shine to light the path that He has set
You to walk upon. His mercy will let
You slay who would blaspheme or from afar
Defile His lands. Glory is yours, oh soon.
Of the heart. Of the tongue. Of the sword. The holy war
Is waged against the self at first, to raze
The ziggurat of sin we climb upon
To view ourselves, and next against that glaze
The enemies of faith will use to disguise
Their words. Only then, and at the caliph's nod,
Are believers called to drown in blood the people
Of an earlier book. There is no god but God.
He knows the day of death and sees how men
Will hide. Who breaks His covenant is cursed,
Who slights His revelations will live in fire.
He has cast aside the schemer and the liar
Who mistake their emptiness of heart for a thirst
That, to slake, the streams of justice descend.
Ski-masked on videotape, the skinny martyr
Reads his manifesto. He's stilted, nervous.
An hour later, he's dropped at the market town,
Pays his fare, and climbs aboard the bus.
Strapped to his chest is the death of thirty-four
-Plus his own- "civilians" on their way
To buy or sell what goods they claim are theirs,
Unlike our fates, which are not ours to say.
Under the shade of swords lies paradise.
Whom you love are saved with you, their souls
In His hand. And who would want to return to life
Except to be killed again? Who can thrive
On the poverty of this world, its husks and holes?
His wisdom watches for each sacrifice.