I - The Conquest of Bread

our walls have ears
these walls can talk
my family hides in terror
for above us flies an unmanned hawk
but do you hear the noise from Egypt?
can you hear Yemen splinter?
we better hurry up and organise
before the Arab Winter

our empty stomachs
take us to the hummock
where we organise
we scurry like rats
to facebook chats
to recruit and inform allies
on March 15
we march and face
the barrels of their machine guns
the ‘kingdom of silence’
screams when violence
has begun

we thought he’d be gone
like the Tsar or the Shah
but not this man
no, not Bashar
his reign is one of blood
and we watch the bullets flood
and the bodies pile up
and the gutters turn to red
and our teardrops turn to red
and our bodies fill with lead
and the stars can smell the rising stench of the dead

II - The Butchery

I’ve seen a pyramid
I saw what those men did
and I never want to see it again
and from this pyramid
of flesh as smooth as silk
I try to hear children laughing again

YouTube told me this was done by Al-Assad
but I promise you, my little lamb, that he won’t lay you down
I promise you, my darling, my comfort, my joy, my sunshine,
that he won’t break your skin

III - Ground Zero

I see you on the other side of ground zero
your hair is waving gently in the flames
I see you on the other side of ground zero
with your entrails dangling out onto the rubble
I run all through the souq
tears streaming down my face
as your soft melody of shrieks
fades from my ear

‘We have not a single honest poem
That has not lost its virginity in a ruler’s Harem’

I turn my picture of Him
[I see you on the other side of ground zero]
so it faces the wall
[your hair is waving gently in the flames]
and I step out into the night
I look up at the sky
[I see you on the other side of ground zero]
and see a lone star
[with your entrails dangling out into the wind]
quiver above Pyongyang
[I run all through the souq, tears streaming down my face, as your soft melody of shrieks fades from my ear]
and I just know there has to be something more than this

‘What I’m saying is, that if you haven’t been in the Situation Room… Unless you’ve been involved in those conversations, then it’s kind of hard for you to understand the complexity of the situation...’

I turn my picture of Him
so it faces the wall
and I step out into the night
I look up at the sky
and I see a lone star
quiver above Pyongyang
quiver above Wall Street