Maryam
turned,
moving
away
from the
caravans of
bulldozers
entering
Homs.

She
could
not bear
to look
upon the
the teeth
of steel
tracks
sloshing
through
puddles
of blood,
plowing
the rubble,
burying the
mush,
coolly
covering the
fingerprints of
criminals.

Maryam
beheld the
conquering
soldiers
standing
atop piles
of shrapnel
marked and
launched by
Syria’s finest
artillery officers.

She
remained
within ear shot
to hear the
victor’s
orator,
recite the
history of
the conquest,
carefully
spinning
suspicion,
and casting
blame
for the
devastation
onto the
vanquished.

The speaker
lauded the
efforts of
esteemed
comrades
commanding
black regiments
chasing the
last rats still
lapping at
the edges
of the red
pools;
hieing to
the dead
catacombs
as sanctuaries
of salvation.

The barker
goads other gangs
to commence a
surgical search
of hospitals to
root out wounded
insurgents. He
suggests they be
removed from
their recovery
beds and thrown
atop the piles of refuse
where the busy tractors
will push the rubble
into the far corners
of the mind where
obfuscation and
forgetfulness
blissfully anoints
unsettled memory.

Alarmed,
Maryam breaks
for the hospital,
to nurse the
injured.

She moves with
tealth through
the broken city’s
debris strewn streets.

Maryam eyes the
inert concrete,
blasted into
ghastly shapes,
burying secrets,
concealing terrible
stories of what
transpired
during the
pacification of
Baba Amr.

These
grotesque
gargoyles,
sculpted by the
mangled hand
of a deranged
sociopath
will hold their
silence for
only so long.

Dark secrets
never live
forever.

The distended heaps
of jangled rebar
pokes through
broken chunks
of concrete
like rib cages
picked clean by
the jackals
of war.

The pulverized
concrete forms
telling Mandalas
giving voice to
the stained
stones crying
the secrets of
terrible truths that
unmarked graves
never keep
silent.

Maryam
is desperate
to find the
lost children.

She knows
the ungodly
conquerors
eagerly
hunt them.

The subjugators
are drunk from the
draughts of blood
they profanely quaff.

They thirst
for more and
have set
their sight on
the children.

The crucifiers
kiss the sword
to cleanse
the insurgent
city of its
youngest
citizens.

Bashar has
condemned
a generation
to death.

He desires
to purge Syria
of a heinous
memory stored in
the ripening minds
of Homs’ children.

They stand in  
witness to
the ******
of their
childhood.

Righteous
indignation
breeds a
long  memory
nursed by the
vanquished as
a cherished gift;
bestowed to
successive
generations
like a valuable
family heirloom;
but
resentment
makes for
a monstrous
coat of arms
vanquishers
bequeath to
the defeated.

Maryam
crosses over
the scattered
stones
incapable
of bleeding
one more
drop of blood.

She hears
the howling
spirits calling
from the broken
ruins.

She glimpses
the dark silhouettes
of fleeting apparitions
moving through
the upper floors
of flame stained
buildings.

The ghostly
shadows of
lost children
wander, seeking
the rest of an
expired future
sired by their
state sanctioned
execution.

Maryam
grows anxious
as she
approaches
the hospital.

She arranges
her silk scarf.
She examines
her calloused
hands. The lines
of her palms
are soiled,
cakes of dirt
have settled
under her
fingernails;
yet sufficient
strength remains
in her arms
to roll away
the large stones
entombing
revelations
of love and
miracles of
deliverance.

The pock
marked
hospital now
in sight,
Maryam
enters the gate
of a ancient
graveyard;
clambering
over burial
mounds
of her dead
ancestors.

She remembered
a placard hanging
in the hospital’s
waiting room.

“Art is long; life is short;
opportunity is fleeting;
judgment is difficult;
experience is deceitful.”
Hippocrates.

As Maryam
neared the
graveyard exit
she was
overtaken by
Syrian soldiers
brandishing AK’s.

One stuck a
dusty barrel
into Maryam’s
face while
the other tapped
the back of her
head from behind.

A weeping
Maryam
knelt before
her captors.

She
washed
the dust
from their
boots with
flowing tears
and wiped
them clean
with her hair;
praying for
the power
of love
to once
again
overcome
the stalk
of death.

Prostrate
and prone
Maryam
waited to
accept the
shaft of
recrimination
through her
bleating gums.

If recollection is long
in the living,
memory is eternal
in the dead generations.

The only known cure
for the disease of acrimony
is the strong balm of love.

Maryam would
never again nurse
the wounded
children of
Homs.

Music Selection:
Chanticleer & Yvette Flunder
There is a Balm in Gilead

Oakland
3/12/12
jbm

In a deserted land..
Maryam was crying in pain...
All alone in a desert...
She crawled to the nearest palm tree
Leaned her heavy body against it...
She was giving birth to her child...
and she was experiencing the greatest pain,
She had no one except her god
and god protected her...
She heard a whisper...
"shake the trunk of the palm towards you
and fresh, ripe dates will drop down onto you.”
She thanked god for the love and care...
For her and the newborn... a miracle child..

Moon-bird alike, my life, I can't fathom
Against age ..wings flapped..under anthelia
Red knots flew west, yet... a suffer
Yarning a long journey east, here's a fairy
A blue-eyed dove cooed away angina
Made wrecks stand...florets re-blossom!

..

your mother
was a girl with ashes in her eyes and gold in her nostrils
a chain delicate as autumn leading from ear to the centre
of her heart, of the place where our priest's holy incense found its sole purpose.

I just assumed that she
was a wild wanton that ran through the ashes and dust of the
streets of the market at dust, and she loved and did not love
and not loving made it easier to lay on the tabernacle of a sacred courtesan.

we don't have those anymore
they drove them out screaming, naked, heads shaven
as barren and scorched as the desert in their dying breaths
and Maryam, we don't have those anymore,
the word is not courtesan but *****.

but I took it on faith out of love for you
when you told me with fire in your eyes that your mother
saw the face of God in between the sheets of paper
as a maiden pure, the Egyptian lotus in her secret sweetness only God knew,
Psyche drawing back the veil of Isis, looking at the face of her star-birthing lover.

to love you was to look at the sun
and be burned, enflamed, seared into agony and nothingness
and yet to be clothed in the flesh of the sun anew
and when I wore nothing but the star-strewn gold dusk of my skin
I wore the sacred mantle of a courtesan.

They say that we're oppressed
Suffocating behind veils
And wear un-attractive bin bags
Shapeless and nameless

They say we're not allowed to be educated
And assume we can't speak English
That we're slaves to men
And we should forsake the medieval religion

The medieval religion that gave me life
And stopped female child infanticide
The one that treats me equal with no false illusions

The one that says that I should be respected as a person not a body
The one that first gave me rights
To vote and own property

The religion that commands me to seek knowledge and educate
To travel for this duties sake
And allows me to keep my name

Islam says that I should be covered
Like all things rare and special
Pearls and diamonds
You wouldn't flash your jewels for the taking

Nuns are admired for their devotion
And respected for their piety
Also clinging on to their modesty
Our models are Maryam or Mary

Not a cent that I earn has to be spent on anyone but myself
And the best of men in Allah's eyes
Is one who treats me the best

funny... there was just one man,
riding a donkey
into jerusalem...
      no horse in sight...
but then it was
rekindled via pearl jam's
  vitalogy song: this is not
for you...
and yeah, pigeon grooving
that rhythm...
alongside the four horsemen:
a cabernet sauvignon,
a sagrantino,
   a merlot,
& a tempranillo;
****! i can't remember drinking
red wine... it feels
like injecting dentistry's
  anaesthetic!
  faaa faa faa-ing ton-nahmin';
yeah, and they thought
the three camel-jockeys
were a big deal
  at the birthday bonanza for
primary school children...
why do atheists love christmas
carols, and call
the cantos of templars something
racist?
        i hate christmas carols,
but play me some templar cantos
or byzantine chants of monks
and i'm pumped up
into an emotional crusade...
that's why i find richie dorkings
so unappealing...
       mind you, apart from the fact
that i haven't been confirmed...
seriously? christmas carols?
  you got to be pulling me a daft
joke...
      i take the cantos of crusaders
as seriously and as the same
bounty of beauty as a muslim
might receive from receding into
an adhan...
funny though...
the wahabi mantra within
ideological demands would ban
the adhan... i.e.: no music,
                                no singing!
too true abdullah ibn isaac...
    start speaking it, end up like
the catholics,
       with that satanic-sounding
mantra of corinth...
           you keep mumbling that
indeed, when said rather than sung
the catechism becomes
a satanic by-stander...
  **** me, the evil-elven stark-naked
mumbling mantra...
         it's worse than a bunch
of bees lodge inside a seashell...
the sea? what sea? there's no sea
invoked, only the demand for
the hive and the queen...
personally?
   i have more respect for
          khadija (the first wife
of muhammad, and the one who actually
wrote down what the madman
was insiting /
                an ode to older women) -
than i have for the "******" mary -
to me khadija is an epitome -
  but she was already swearing and cursing
rolling in her mummy cloth of grave:
when she read into the deeds of
a man, who took too many liberties
              after her death;
yep, and muhammad was promised
72 lashesh by this lass;
to me? khadija overshadows maryam,
and look how she's treated...
     ******* moozoos, moozoos...
slavic slang term for muslims;
i despire atheists who appreciate
christmas carols but disregard
the cantos of the templars,
like i despise muslims who give
no credit to khadija for penning the first
surahs of the koran;
once more: last time i heard:
            he was an illiterate orphan!
so who wrote the first surahs?
                                               mr. blobby?

A letter to the man who gave me this life

Did you know,
when you pulled the trigger,
that that bullet would give me a new life?
Did you even know my name?
I am Maryam.
I am Dima.
I am Agnes.
I am Charles.
I am 6 million kids affected by you.
Do you know where my doll is?
She is the only one who wouldn’t leave,
if she were here.
I left her at home,
have you bombed my house yet?
Please!
I am only 11.
I am only 10.
I am only 12.
I am only 16.
I am only a child.
Just a child.
Can you help my daddy?
He only got out of the car for a minute,
when there was a loud bang.
In the quiet,
all I could see were my daddy’s boots.
His face was so white,
his hands getting colder.
He is staring at me without seeing me.
God!
He is dead!
Why would you do this?
These shots,
they haunt my dreams.
When you pulled the trigger,
did you know that I would jump--
by simple sound of a door closing?
I was planting pumpkins.
We were going to make pie.
But now, I am starving.
Stuck in a dark room.
The men come in,
I don’t understand…
Why?!?!
I am only a small girl.
I am only a small boy.
You make fear burn,
as passionately as love once did.

Love,
The Child With No Parents (Thanks)

13)  holy extreme performance-artist who ended badly

14)  aryan/teutonic warrior who somehow got born in judea

15)  misunderstood gay-rights activist

16)  entheogenic bringer of the sacred mushroom rite

17) propaganda figure concocted by the flavians

18) lucifer's spirit-brother

19) maitreya: "the christ consciousness within"

20) hebrew extremist with delusions of grandeur

21) prophet isa bin maryam the great mahdi

22) just another hindu avatar and world-teacher

A mar yam
on the floor
and swept
by a maryam