Believe, obey, fight-
Tow the party line!
It's a quick battle,
One waged against your own interest;
It's a sad case,
To watch men spit in their own face.
It's family, God, & country
And no room for the self.
Don't you care about your race?
How will you protect it?
What about your religion?
Enshrine it, defend it, spread it?
Of your state-
Bolster, boast, expansion?
Your God?
Your country?
Your family?

I said it wasn't my country,
so I watched her milks turn acids
her blood diluting her rivers of honey
and her tears washing off her own fertility.

I had no fear—
     for it wasn't near.

I said it wasn't my tribe,
so I saw,
but pretended not to have even looked
I listened,
but pretended not to have even heard
Yet it was written on my every line;
they aren't of my kind.

I didn't care—
     for it wasn't my tears.

I said it wasn't my religion,
so I turned my back
reciting from my scriptures
I have eyes, but had no vision.

I had no fear—
     for of God, who dares?

It came for my country, but I wasn't near
It went for my tribe, but I wasn't there
It came for my religion, but I wasn't aware.
Now it has come for me,
but there's no one here.

By Abdulmalik Jibril
©2019

I don't think people realize how fragile it all is
how it just falls apart when you're looking out of the window at something else
at first you don't realize because it happens bit by bit
you'll get used to it

the culture war looms
it pulls out your skirt on fridays
take me out please
take me where the boys are
you know you want to
it tugs at your sleeves saying
oh you didn't hear what they said about you?
flag wars they sing

truth is a preference
it's true if it feels right
if it doesn't well
it's fake news of course

oh you didn't know non-player character
will you play to win?
because feelings don't care about your facts

you see I was born in 83
in the newly formed islamic republic of iran
three years into the trench warfare that changed the psyche of a nation forever
high on the islamic revolution
full of fury
blood and soil
blood and soil
the hors d'oeuvres of the war
we fled in 88 three months before the war ended
nothing gained nothing fulfilled

I see the absolute worst in people
I watch them and learn much from what they get outraged by and what they don't
it all starts small rooted in a search for meaning a sense of purpose
once this is defined just watch them turn on each other
the other essentially

war needs a dragon
war needs young men to believe
the culture war has always been there
like a monster’s nails casting an ominous shadow
behind the bedroom door tapping away at your mother's vinyl flooring

when people get safe
with fear at bay the tapping dims
but when an immigrant stabs an infidel
or a black man is apparently murdered on video
the tapping gets louder
what is the dream of the foreigner hoping to penetrate the walls of the golden city
to weaken it?
from the russian bot to the isis video slicing brody's neck right before your eyes
it gets at you doesn't it?
doesn't he look like you?
your white knuckles are shaking
yes yes the monster says
I will draw you in

because I'm just a monster living in the hallway
and I'm nothing without you
is what he'll never ever tell you

but it's true
he aims to exaggerate the divisions within your family
to exploit it
to challenge your identity
to play with your emotions
as you've done to them
so you know this game very well
you just don't know the side of the table that will
as in the iran-iraq war both the us and the uk sold arms to both sides
the great game

War is profitable and the opportunity to cash in on it is tempting
people don't have ideas
ideas have people
how fragile at all is

this very society that I cherish that I sought refuge in
my family
the vast base
the stable economy
common law
democracy
if life started in the east
then the reason to be of the west is to carry on the torch
to learn from past mistakes and to be a light unto the world
until our very toes are inching at the pacific with no further to go
will I find myself staring at the window pondering what happened
like so many countless men throughout history have?

how fragile at all this
we won't know until it's taken from us
not by the formless foreigner but by our own very hand that opens the bedroom door
to experience our darkest insides that grows and grows endlessly
until we have nothing else
the monster in the bed now
in all that cold
and all that dark

Try along these sacks for proof of feral merriment,
in stilled eyes and on carnal graves. All whose rotting
limbs are well studied in 'ologies of human squander-
Red with laughter, plucked with all caving souls and
anger. Gasping, so, with lewd amusement of the dead
in jest.

Muspelhiem froths forth with cold hearts, lusting of
mortal slaughter. I've seen the men whose vial looks a
barrel‒ whose foaming mouths, birthed-stillborn of
Sheol and all it's unebbing horrors, can't restrain the
joy of culling. Hate creation‒ worship crude insemination,
ravished toward the making of wilful immolation.  

But what casket of pleasant delirium, brings deaths to
child's eyes‒ no wars of misfortune must be ******
of a playful kind. Hecatombs, artistic as day‒ homes
like Tophet for children to play. But whose poison
to **** me sooner, under Black Suns and darkened
hearts, as Lucifer capers down the burrow.

‘I belong to this
And you belong to that
Here is a line in the grass
That you may not pass

You stay on that side
I stay on this
Here is a laminated card
Without it life is hard

You talk in that way
I talk in this
Those similar I hold dear
But you cannot come here

I have this symbol
You have your own
Three colours on a rag
You have an uglier flag

I am one type of person
You are a different kind
Our kind cannot be mixed
For our categories are fixed.’

Nations – what a load of old *******.