History is asleep historically

Israel Has Chosen At Last
To Take A Shot
At Turning Gaza
Into A Parking Lot.
Come, Let Us Divide
The Mortuary Slabs.
Pluck An Eye For An Eye
In Dead-Houses.
Yank A Child
By The Umbilical Cord
Of His Mother's Womb
And Garland It With Skulls.
Come, Let Us Plant A Minaret
In A Woman's Womb.
You Kill My Mother.
I Kill Your Wife.
Come
Let Us Pluck The Eyes Of Infants
And Divide The Silence Among
Ourselves.
You Take The Foetus.
Leave Me The Entrails.
Come, Let Us Watch The Sun
Dripping With Blood
At Sunset...
Couldn't It Have Been Otherwise
When Maybe Someday
We Could've Borrowed
A Pebble From Newton
And Set Out To Sea... (Sigh)

History is asleep historically, smelling
Of human blood, industrial scum
And urchins stuffed with garbage
And gutter syrups.
History is asleep kingdoms away
In gulags of our private holocausts
How many Jerusalems shall we burn
Along the wailing walls
Of our fault lines.
When rains come to Kinshasa,
When children in silhouettes
Bleach on savannahs,
What burden of the white man
Shall we carry to Darfur?

Sometimes My Father
Sits Within Me And Ponders
For My Sake. I Sit by his Elbow
At such times.
Many are the Moments
Of Sadness
Of Joy
And Of That Bereaved Silence of
Flying Kites on Lonely Afternoons
My Mother Begins To Die
Within Me
And The Cradle Within My Eyes
Stops Rocking To Lullabies
Like Rivers Slowly Drying Up
Of Memories
Like Mountains Turning Bald
Like The Earth Cracking Up
Like Winds Moving Around
On Crutches Of Silence.
The Skies Are
A Charcoal Box of Clouds Flung
Over the Retreating Back
of Yet Another day
Wending its Weary Way Home.
And I Hold On
To Her Shadows
As The Sun Begins To Set
To The Chattering Farewell
Of Birds...

I dreamt of lullabies
In cradles of civilisations
Along the birthplaces of History.
I dreamt my mother had
Once again given birth to me.
I wept for the winds
Out in the skies. I wept
For the night that sat on a stool
Over the river, forehead sprinkled
With stardust and sweat
Of the Milky Way.
I dreamt my mother had
Once again led me by her hands
Through the long ages of Man.
Once again
The milk and honey of philosophy
The traditions of war
Once again
The green and sombre forests
Of speculative thought.