I hope it will not be taken awry if I quote a poem entire of Faiz Ahmed
Faiz, (Kashmiri poet 1911- 1984)
"Stay Away from Me (Bangladesh I)"
How can I embellish this carnival of slaughter,
how decorate the massacre?
Whose attention could my lamenting blood attract?
There's almost no blood left in my rawboned body
and what's left
isn't enough to burn as oil in the lamp,
not enough to fill a wineglass.
It can feed no fire,
extinguish no thirst.
There's a poverty of blood in my ravaged body--
a terrible poison now runs in it.
If you pierce my veins, each drop will foam
as venom at the cobra's fangs.
Each drop is the anguished longing of ages,
the burning seal of a rage hushed up for years.
Beware of me. My body is a parched log in the desert.
If you burn it, you won't see the cypress or the jasmine,
but my bones blossoming like thorns on the cactus.
If you throw it in the forests,
instead of morning perfumes, you'll scatter
the dust of my seared soul.
So stay away from me. Because I'm thirsting for blood.
from _The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems_ (Trans. Agha Shahid Ali)
The strength of feeling some of us are feeling and expressing is both
valid, and at times unjust.
Faiz identifies the rage people of any nation feel after an attack,
and perhaps he also justifies the rage, and his deep kindness is that he
also warns against his own rage.
Nicholas Sergeant
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