REUNION OF THE BROKEN PARTS

(definition of the Arabic word al-jebr, The Times, 9 January, 2015. The quotation from Omar Khayyàm is from verse 51 of his Rubaiyàt)

Social media shifts political correctness.

One minute je suis Charlie swamps the screens,

then someone tweets that Ahmed

was gunned down defending the right

of atheists to ridicule his God.

Does he get seventy-two virgins, too?

Facebook is flooded with homage cartoons:

a snapped pencil sharpens itself, twice.

The moving finger writes, and having writ

Moves on; now, je suis juif

and holocaust memorial day

raises its grizzled head one more.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia

a blasphemer receives fifty

of his allocated thousand lashes.

Who can find one deity to hold it all together

while his flayed back begins to knit,

and someone posts je suis Bartholemew.

Copyright © 2015. Hannah Stone

Todos los derechos reservados. All rights reserved.