Syria: two poems by Marvin X and Mohja Kahf

Oh, Mohja

how much water can run from rivers to sea

how much blood can soak the earth

the guns of tyrants know no end

a people awakened are bigger than bullets

there is no sleep in their eyes

no more stunted backs

fear of broken limbs

men, women children humble with sacrifice

old/young play their roles

with smiles endure torture chambers

with laughs submit to rape mutilations

no victory oppressors

days numbered

as the sun rises

let the people continue til victory

they smell it on their hands

taste on lips

believe in hearts

know it in minds

no backwardness no fear

resistance til victory.

--Marvin X/El Muhajir

Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf

Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?

The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood

and overrun the earth with evil?” 

And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor: 

see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma

shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark

and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping

from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,

and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,

nor rebel car bombs on the ground,

ask them their names before they die. 

They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,

and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.

They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.

Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut

becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river 

running all the way over the ocean, to you,

draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels, 

“I know what you know not.” But right now,

the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;

learn the names of all the Syrians.

See what your species has done.

--Mohja Kahf