There’s one thing to know
about Arabs
and Muslims
that the culture they crafted:
is not about suicide.
bombing or otherwise.
find it in art
in mathematics
and gardens
in dancing
and music
farming
the books and the sea
in boats and in poems
designs to embroider
in jewelry
and medicine
mosaic Alhambra
Al-gebra and poems
and food
and feasting
singing legends and stories
and stone walls and courtyards
generosity’s here
with Ahlan wa’sahlan,
“My home is your home”
But it’s not about suicide
it never has been
not now and not then
this never will be.
but we know
That the hand
Of the unseen controller
informs and refigures
the shape of the world
the dark sweetheart deal
brokered and paid for
that sponsors in Palestine
a deathly new business:
recruited and drugged
the young and traumatic
under mind control handlers:
manufactured fanatic
who blows himself up
whose hand is inside?
Who’s the surrogate
puppetized dancer
Compliant, reliant
Instructions commissioned
who carves up the spoils
and hands out percentage
and steals even trees
to obliterate hamlets
civilization persists
and it’s not about suicide
These suicide bombings
just flow to the surface
they stain like black oil
where CIA boots
swarm over a wedding
outside Kabul
they kill all the men
and the boys of Falluja
14 or 15
marched with their fathers
grandfathers half blind
Marched out to nowhere
to Abu Ghraib
to the tip of the iceberg
but this you must see:
that it’s not about suicide
survival and honor
the need to be free
but it’s not about suicide
it never will be.
Bob Green
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-s-not-about-suicide/
