My body is fresh as henna leaf:
green outside; inside, raw meat.
Of water I can’t even have a taste.
My lover’s name, written on my heart, will be erased.
Separation brought this kind of grief:
it made itself a mullah and me the village thief.
Because my love’s American,
blisters blossom on my heart.
Is there not one man here brave enough to see
how my untouched thighs burn the trousers off me?
Making love to an old man
is like fucking a shriveled cornstalk blackened by mold.
Unlucky you who didn’t come last night,
I took the bed’s hard wood post for a man.
When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.
My body belongs to me;
to others its mastery.
The drones have come to the Afghan sky.
The mouths of our rockets will sound in reply.
Come to Guantánamo.
Follow the clang of my chains.
May God destroy the Taliban and end their wars.
They’ve made Afghan women widows and whores.
Wormwood grows on the one-eyed Mullah’s grave.
The Talib boys fight blindly on, believing he’s alive.
Hamid Karzai came to Kabul
to teach our girls to dress in Dollars.
I dream I am the president.
When I awake, I am the beggar of the world.
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/i-am-the-beggar-of-the-world/
green outside; inside, raw meat.
Of water I can’t even have a taste.
My lover’s name, written on my heart, will be erased.
Separation brought this kind of grief:
it made itself a mullah and me the village thief.
Because my love’s American,
blisters blossom on my heart.
Is there not one man here brave enough to see
how my untouched thighs burn the trousers off me?
Making love to an old man
is like fucking a shriveled cornstalk blackened by mold.
Unlucky you who didn’t come last night,
I took the bed’s hard wood post for a man.
When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.
My body belongs to me;
to others its mastery.
The drones have come to the Afghan sky.
The mouths of our rockets will sound in reply.
Come to Guantánamo.
Follow the clang of my chains.
May God destroy the Taliban and end their wars.
They’ve made Afghan women widows and whores.
Wormwood grows on the one-eyed Mullah’s grave.
The Talib boys fight blindly on, believing he’s alive.
Hamid Karzai came to Kabul
to teach our girls to dress in Dollars.
I dream I am the president.
When I awake, I am the beggar of the world.
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/i-am-the-beggar-of-the-world/
