
Photo from The Guardian
Someone declares “Bleed your people, for they deserve to learn that gods need to be appeased.”
Another says “See how straight the strings of these puppets. Their limbs jerk with the slightest twitch of our wrists. You must learn from them.”
The chief who was chosen by his own people stares them down, eyes unflinching. He may not know tomorrow, but he knows yesterday. And he stands today, not alone among those who dare to imagine another way of breathing.
-o-
Meanwhile, pensioners are shot and robbed in one place, and in another, a man in a wheelchair – not the first – robs a bank.
There are many ways of hurting. There are countless ways of coming together again.
Leave a comment | tags: assault on pensioners, bank robber, Greece, IMF, robbers, Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award, South Africa, wheelchair, World Bank | posted in Uncategorized

They come in a rain of flames and screams.
They seek the softness of flesh,
cracking points of bones.
But many of them unleash the horror
of their intent when all is quiet.
In silence they lurk
among the bushes. Still. Sinister.
Patient. Someone will walk
past them one day. Perhaps
someone who collects metal
scraps for a living.
Or maybe a child
will notice just one of them
with a bright yellow tail
playfully beckoning in the wind:
Take me. Take me.
Take me that I may be
One with your tender flesh.
Take me…
Sometimes there will not even be a scream.
-o-

Abdullah Yaqoob - DCA Archive
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