Blood Reign

All photos courtesy of Ap and Twitter

I’ve revised and reworked an earlier piece written in 2017 as a response to the terrorism of Hamas and the war Israel has declared. It seems to me that this slaughter by Hamas and the retaliation that Israel is now forced to take cannot be what any God wants. Surely, it is not what the Palestinian people or the people of Israel want either.

The blood of children
falls as rain
on Holy ground.
The blood of their parents
chasing after
as if to save it,
stopping it
from concreating the land
to evil born of old hatred
as the world,
emptied of all care,
watches.

No uprisings.
No shouting in the streets
as this blood rain of innocents falls, 
flooding the silent world 
as nations watch, 
hands bloodied 
in pretense of helplessness
before turning their backs.
 
The seven descend.
Each with wings spread
enough to fill a house.
Shalom upon their tongues.
Throughout the compass points
they search to find
all the gnawed bones,
the muscles and sinew,
the heart and entrails
torn with teeth of hate.
And once the seven
gather all the tiny bits,
With flaming swords
used as needles,
they try to stitch
all humanity’s bloody bits
into one thing well knit.
Neither their swords,
nor spirit of their breath
have the power to seal
the meat and sinew to bone.

And then they know--
those who showed no mercy
would be given none.
Their heads hang--
Inshallah upon their lips
as they ascend.
Their flaming eyes
weeping tears of fire
as they see the red rider
striding across the land.

It is then the seven know 
humanity’s avarice and hate
had broken the fourth seal.

Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke
within their throats.
From the seven sets of fiery eyes,
their tears of fire
stream Retzon ha-el 
across the night sky.