Where has my language gone?
The poet searches for words to wrap around these times
Make them sense Make them pretty Make them useful
Words from the past haunt our conversations
Empire and Crusade
Plans and Centuries
All these words cleared understanding before
Fall heavy now
And weightless into this abyss of bad news
I have seen the photographs
Again words Prison Torture
Desperate for words I can write
That are not profane That are objective Read as rational
So people will not stop reading this self-conscious poem
So my parents will not be embarrassed
So Americans will demand the return of their own
Desperate for words I can write
So I can keep from becoming something hard and unforgiving
Language has failed me
I am told to believe nothing I read
Then everything I read
I am given my own face to be wary of
I am told to fear colors as alerts
I am told over and over
Iraq is not Palestine
Kabul is not New York
The photos
Women Raped
Posed as girls gone wild
This is entertainment This is staged This is recorded
Men Chained
Do words such as humiliation and torture
Truly fit the immensity of these acts?
What happens to those who survive?
What happens to those responsible?
Haiti is not Chechnya
Chiapas is not East L.A.
Iraq is not Palestine
Over and over I am told
I am given a vantage point and a lens and instructed
Do not move Do not look up Do not look down
I am falling
By Suheir Hammad. Keep on reading.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 