Inside their tombs, our martyrs are whispering,
Oh God, we are coming back.

On land they are lifting their hands,
and their voices grow in the silence of the grave:
Oh God, we are coming back.

Stones fall, ashes rise, and their eyes beam,
Oh God, we are coming back.

Our martyrs stepped out of their coffins,
lined up and raised the shout:
Shame on you cowards.
Our home is sold, our nation
a herd of sheep, and you sleep.

Our martyrs travel to Al Aqsa Mosque,
they pray in the churches of Lebanon,
they wander the streets of Jerusalem,
they break into prisons in every land.

They rise from the ashes of the captive home
and preach on every corner of a beaten nation.

They call in the midst of massacres,
God is greater than this man-made world,
God is greater than this man-made world,
God is greater than this man-made world.

Our martyrs are approaching, their shouts echoing
on the walls of Beirut. They gather in the streets
to fight in darkness despite the pale light.

In homes bound by humiliation and madness, they call,
Oh God we are coming back.
One day our coffins will light all of Jerusalem.

They are coming back to break into the castle.



On every corner, they ask the cowards,
Why did you tolerate the wolf, sleeping
amidst sheep, a home as whole as the universe
auctioned off, overrun with rats?

Cowards who sold out our broken home,
our living ancestors, there you are
on the screen, drunk in the fuss,
walking Death, hypocrisy, and control,
we will rid our holy dead of you,
and of the irony of the age.

Oh God we are coming back.

Don’t believe that people killed
in a battle for God are dead,
they are still alive in God.

*

Our martyrs, roaring on every corner of the land,
streams of them asking,
Oh living, what are you doing?

Every day you’re double-crossed and slain
like sheep, surrendering your rights,
running like rats to the wolves,
leaving your people weeping

while you are prostrate before America’s
dollars and the images on screen.

Rats in all sorts of compromising ways.

And in the mad laughter of calamity,
a nation is sold into collapse.

Two images collapse into one:

while kneeling,
your heads under their shoes,
and our Arab Jerusalem,
given to wolves by the drunken.



With Lebanon adrift in blood, and tyranny
on the prowl, our martyrs shout
from every corner, Does honor
have a place? Where have the rebels
disappeared? Why have the sellouts fled?

The silent, the forgetful, and the two-tongued
all keep their mouths shut.
If you ask, they give you official nonsense.
If you ask, you get a bullet in the eye.

*

When you march in the parade of commerce
you wind up sold. History shows traitors
no mercy. The flood washes
over all of you chasing death
with the ad-man chasing you
to sell you tomorrow in the slave market.

Our priests are oblivious in their seats,
drunk on the power of reign and rule.

Our people in prison-darkness. All of them asleep.

When do the sleeping awaken?
When the sleeping wake.