Colonized Babylon
Colonized Babylon
Content warning: sexual assault.
In colonized Babylon
our fortress was replaced with a cage of copper,
the sun with a watchtower
lit by a cigarette That is held hostage
between the pink lips of a Polish teenager,
armed with a plastic crown and a metal gun.
A suave rooster’s crow with the cacophony
of fragmented sounds of bombs.
Winds that platonically flirt with strands of hair,
with perverted bullets shot with animalistic lust
yearning to rape bodies,
to go into the hearts of our mothers
before tearing through our chests,
scattering our neatly decorated insides.
Strolling the desert in imperfect circles,
searching for our oasis of placidity,
or what is closest in peacefulness
and harmony
to a smoking corner of a European airport.
Holding a soft whistle between our wooden lips,
protecting it from frantic white cries
and the slams of cement doors,
that wakes up
those who went to spell-casted sleep
by dint of a soft whistle
that is sleeping,
sucking on its thumb
between the cracks of our teeth.
About this poem
During the May 2021 events in Occupied Palestine, a sense of desperateness engulfed me, watching the streets of our cities turn chaotic with beasts walking around, promising us nothing but harm. My hands were working together trying to keep up with wiping my tears away and counting martyrs. I would listen to Babylon by Thomas Azier on repeat, trying to get my mind off of the news for a second. But the situation we were in seemed inescapable. while the singer goes on and on with his nostalgic recalls about him and his lover. He would grief the loss of his lover and their paradise, and my own lost paradise would come to my mind: Palestine. Babylon the poem is a translation of what listening to Babylon the song made me feel at those difficult times my people and I had to endure. "And I will make you mine Again…" -Thomas Azier, Babylon more »
Written on January 25, 1998
Submitted by Roua.jan on March 24, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABACCDCEFGHIJKLMNBOFPQRSTUVWXY |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,052 |
Words | 200 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 30 |
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Citation
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"Colonized Babylon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/155920/colonized-babylon>.
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