Song From a Barren Land.

                       Song From A Barren Land

 I can only imagine

His lament. Barely a thousand

years robbed his people of their stars.

Now, each grain of sand turn’d crimson trying

to grasps yesteryear’s recitations.

               This sacred land is doomed

               For among the lusty steel bars, cries forc’d

              out of man’s fear and ignorance. Once

               Babies were killed for being female, women

              murdered by the thousand for, they say, honour.

Is it divine order that prophets

were born among them who’re so crass

and disunited. They sowed new fences

Each one fertilized by increasingly divine dollars.

In turn, transforming their own illusions.

                        Those grain of sands, still laments

                        Their treasures stripped naked by images

                        of Abu ghraib. Only this wayfarer, plods

                       on, knowing that each new step’s a promise

                       for to recite means a tryst with him.

Ahmad Abang

Daro, Malaysia.