Monday, February 28, 2011

bayda to ghadamis.

boy, in jeans and keffiya,
wound tight around neck,
the aircraft can't stop you,

aiming from sky at those above them,
how could they shoot you down?
you have eyes like bomber jets 
and the mouth of a revolution,

you march like free men,
fight like soldiers,
and die like martyrs

brother,
i saw them shoot you down,
through grainy, third party video
on my shiny laptop screen,
the air was cool and i was comfortable,
i saw you bleed, as they dragged you 
towards home, i cried for an hour

imagined your mother, 
young-faced, and grey-haired, 
forced to clean blood
that should've never
been spilled in her lifetime
imagined you clutched to her chest,
"weledi, weledi"
i hear someone in the background say
he was only eighteen

we count shuhood like baby teeth,
and your sister's mouth is almost empty.

you are the face of a revolution,
shrugging off terror, 
i watched you dance under bullets,
the country became free
the day we strangled fear,
leaving her corpse blue and mottled,
at the feet of the regime.

this is a revolution.

ameen. 

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