5 June 2011

UNDER QASIYOUN




Beneath Qasiyoun, we live and die
And seldom look at the cave
Where once two brothers fought
And ground cried out with blood

At mountain’s foot our dreams are lived
Beneath ten thousand years of ghosts
And armies of the djinn
Who look down on us and
judge us for what we’ve made

Of all that they’d left to us
And that we squandered for a day
Of roses and fancy silks
And dancing on their graves

On Qasiyoun, the Prophet stood
Looked down and said “not yet
Not now for me is paradise”
And rightly turned his back on us

From where the sacred river poured
From vales already ancient then
And spilled out on our plain

And we unfit to their honor
Who paved paradise and established here
A brothel and a bar
A gambling house for Babylom
And a charnel pit for our king

We turned our patrimony
Into basest currency.
Sold our mothers off
As slaves to men from other lands
And smiled happy to be

And Qasiyoun looked down at us
And said paradise no more

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