The Rubaiyat of Zarah

Written when ISIS was on the crest and a giggle of British schoolgirls
were brainwashed on twitter and persuaded to become jihadi brides.

The Rubaiyat of Zarah

Only peace and no recrimination
in the garden of my destination.
Immortal youths will serve and comfort me
in my fiery final incarnation.

Just a single-minded slave of Allah
never destined for the field of valour
till fate decreed for me a path unplanned
into the Hall of Martyrs, Inshallah!

Wise twitter-sirens of the Caliphate
send thoughts that pierce my mind – then detonate!
“Think! Will our next Saladin be your son?
Which humble bride will Allah nominate?”

All cyberspace is full of such bold thought.
“Heads full of maths and science come to nought.
What good is there in studying the earth
when Allah’s word is all that should be sought?

The West, beguiled by Satan, lost its way.
When fashion dazzles girls they go astray.
Forgetting God they lose their pride in self,
while Paradise is just for those who pray.

It’s woman’s blessed realm to operate
behind a veil where men will venerate
and pay them due respect. When sexes switch
their roles, societies disintegrate.

Your place is here in our Islamic State
to be a bride and brave jihadi’s mate.
Past seventeen a girl is deemed too old
so flee your bonds before it is too late.

Sister, for you we have a simple plan,
haste to your wedding day as fast you can.
Be chaste! Then fast and pray your daily five.
Breed many Muslim martyrs with your man.”

So to Mosul in answer to the call
I came in niqab covered overall
to be settled in the house where future
brides are by imams taught and held in thrall.

“All disbelievers carry Allah’s curse.
It says so in the Qur’an’s holy verse
then, 'slay them where you find them,' says the book.
They are the fiends of Satan and perverse.

Their armies now are at our very gate
and raining bombs down on our Holy State,
but we don’t fear the wicked infidel,
for Allah’s sons will smite them down in hate."

Then, suddenly, a fatwa is proclaimed.
A missile into London will be aimed.
Disguised, a girl will travel as a bomb.
At morning call our martyr will be named.

All day we sisters panic sweat and quake.
At night we cry and pray and lie awake.
Which girl, a would-be bride, will have to die?
The imam says, “Be brave for Islam’s sake.”

At dawn the imam points a hand at me
and shakes his head in answer to my plea.
“You’re Allah’s choice, stand tall and show your pride.”
But all I feel is terror’s urge to flee.

Then I am led away and told my youth
is lacking in the facts of holy truth.
I must absorb the lessons of the book
and then go forth as Islam’s sabre-tooth.

“Fighting is obligatory for you.
It tells you so in Surah number two.
On disbelievers Allah puts a curse,
so kill the Christian and wicked Jew.

Make war on them till Islam is supreme.
These facts are not a foolish imam’s dream.
You’ll read them all in Surahs two to nine.
We lovers of the book work as a team.

Now off to Turkey where you melt away
as loving brothers speed you on your way
and teach how best to detonate the bomb
when you appear in London on the day."

Convinced that this is where my future lies
I hug my friends in tearful fond goodbyes
because the imam’s lessons taught me that
Islam’s success must feed on Kafir’s cries.

At last I saunter through the vast arcade
where filth and Satan’s spawn are on parade.
“Kill and be killed for Islam and it’s cause.”
And my reward? “A gown of golden braid!”

“Make war on infidels,” true Muslims yell.
“Be harsh, for they are vile and come from hell.”
The girl who ran away is now a bomb.
Fearless! Inspired by Islam’s mighty spell.

I pray and feel the bomb-belt hug my flesh,
a child asleep in mother's niqab-creche.
One flick will blast these Kafirs back to hell
while I, in paradise, start life afresh.

Only peace and no recrimination
in the garden of my destination.
Immortal youths will serve and comfort me
in my fiery final incarnation.

Tones of Times

Tones of Time

In a tavern by the harbour in a western port
a girl is pulling pints for the men who talk of sport.
Memories come flooding like the tidal ebb and flow
of the rolling ocean where the weathered sailors go.
And wistful time is passing.

Visions of a stranger still appearing in the door,
clearer than the river running gushing to the shore.
Tough, as rugged as a rock and yet so full of charm,
eyes brimful of mischief and tattoos upon his arm,
laughter fresh and bracing as the zephyrs of the sea,
a rover embodying the spirit of the free.
His song evokes a nightingale trilling from the nest,
sweet baritone with tremolo, hand upon his breast.
Then, when the tune is lilting, he leaps into the dance
quelling thug and bully with a challenge or a glance.
And happy time is passing.

On the misty mountain when lovers cling together,
breezes and promises are whispers in the heather.
And empty time is passing.

Q&A (The eternal question…)

Q&A

She clambers o’er weed slimy rocks, anguish
on her face, ocean crashing on the shore
where crested breakers race. A silhouette
she stands alone, hair tousled by the gale,
a lonely woman in the storm eyeing
death’s dark vale. “Why am I here? What is it
for?” the burden of her cry. “Nothing cost
and little lost if such as I should die.”

Far voices of the petrels wail in wind
and rain then echo round the bluff and cove
the lesson of their pain. “Heed the sea,” the
voices say, ”and wonder at its ways. It
sculpts the rocks and wears the cliffs while carving
out the bays. Fearsome when the west winds blow
we tremble at its roar. Yet children dance
the golden sand it scatters on the shore.

Now look upon its storm lashed face
where currents spring from tidal race
and billows form a random force
without beginning end or course.
No ripple knows what be its role
but minus one there is no whole.
All those mighty warrior waves
forever charging at the shore
are born of countless tidal slaves
that died an unmarked death before.

Like tiny servants of the sea,
not knowing what our fate may be
nor privy to the great discourse,
we must endure and run our course.

She Haunts Me

She Haunts Me
She haunts me in the dead of night
when all the world is sleeping,
the girl I found in Adder Wood
sat on a tree-stump, weeping.

Why do you cry my lovely one?
Who so deserves your pining,
when all the birds are on the wing
and summer sun is shining?

But oh the wars the bloody wars
to end all wars keep coming.
And still the blood, the precious blood,
the peoples’ blood is running.

I cry for my young soldier boy
who fell in foreign mountains
and yet the war-torn peoples’ tears
would fill the Roman fountains.

It's the wicked human failure
that fills my heart with sorrow
for my soldier and the people
who will never see tomorrow.

But oh the wars the bloody wars
to end all wars keep coming.
And still the blood, the precious blood,
the peoples’ blood is running.

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal is silent, blushing at the dawn
thin veneer of beauty heralding the morn.

Scorned and mutilated, living with the hounds,
chattel of the bad men by the palace grounds…
Never ending evil meets them off a train
buys them in a village then inflicts the pain.
“Amputate! Infect them! Smash an arm or leg!
Make them our possession only fit to beg.”

Taj Mahal is mystic, love song of a shah
music of a river echoing afar.

Gentle men and women viewing Mogul’s stones...
“Fountains of compassion, show them broken bones,
get the ragged army limping on parade
begging bowls a-banging, injuries displayed.”

Symbol of submission, baby at her feet
hasn’t got a pillow, sacking for a sheet...
Screaming and hysterics, battle for the prize,
quelling ranting mother, blinding baby’s eyes.

Taj Mahal is awesome, shimmering at night
Agra folk are sleeping, Milky Way glows bright...

Glorifying heaven, planets rove the skies.
Satan roams the shadows, mid the cripples’ cries.

Mirror-world

A life ago my father said, “I saw
your plane pass overhead; stood alone in
wind and rain and watched you go.” I shrugged and
went upon my way, “Choose the way you waste
your day. I've hay to make and seed to sow.”

Then, amid the hours of feeding pets and
tending flowers, I saw the vapour-trail
bisect the sky, a tear spilt by the bluest
eye as you went out to set-about a
world I'd left undone – to sing the songs I
couldn't hum, and all my love was on the
wing in tender wistful thoughts of you that
day. My father must have felt this too but
couldn't say, and I, the one with life to
find, wouldn't pause to read his mind. I know
it's much the same for you, just doing what
you have to do, but if we never say
or show, how can the other ever know?

The one is always unaware as at
the other's heart they tear. My sorrow as
you speed away is full of words we did
not say. Maybe one-day you'll feel this yearning
too... in the mirror-world of me and you.

VOYAGE

Voyage

I stand on the bridge of a lonely ship
that ploughs the seas of time. There’s
no tomorrow until it arrives, no love, no
hate, no crime. The wake is a churn of long
dead days adrift in the bygone years, full
of the dreams of women and men that
vanished amid their fears. I steer by a star
that glitters above in the tides of pressure
below, with the voice of a god in my
binnacle brain that tells me the way to go.