Saturday, February 02, 2008

Afghan Agonistes

FRANWATSON

signs of wealth somewhere:

more wives than teeth, both blessing and curse,
a rusty car, suffering now from sand that blows
night and day, scouring away the paint,
and destroying the cogs and tubes inside
rugs. on the bare earthen floors,
on walls,on couches and beds, covering the chairs,
forming warm windows where none can be
for fear of midnight or daylight attacks.opium,
by pounds and ounces waiting
for deep-pocketed men to thrust more wealth
into my luxurious life. Surely guns,
to fill with noise
the empty desert air when I can no longer stand
the women and the wind, they bark out power!
declaring all that I am not.

Urban Poet

harshly as Kipling described
the virtues of the Afghan race
his descriptions belied
that virtue of which remains no trace

only anger and violence meeting
in the all encompassed feud
in a free translation of their ancient greeting:
we just don't like ya, dude!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you should learn from your own poetry.

"the mind defined by what it holds
not what it wants but what it's told" your mind controls your evident hatred of islamic people. your mind holds the beliefs of your culture, which is the destruction of a native society for the implementation of your culture's way.

"the world informs us with its wrath until we blindly walk that path" you blindly walk the prejudice that your world has taught you.

"defeat the need to fight and bleed
to feed the will of the evil seed
avoid discourtesy and greed
and follow where the angels speed" there is as much good in the afgani as you. you need to fight the will of the evil seed of your prejudice and avoid the discourtesy of expressing your ignorant hatred.

Esav Benyamin said...

Dear "Anonymous",

Your impenetrable ignorance of the barbarity of Afghan culture and the genocidal bigotry of Muslim disdain for the rest of the world, not to mention the violent, misogynistic, dysfunctional societies in which these people live and torment each other, renders a serious response to your comment meaningless.

Anonymous said...

OMYGOSH.

You really have no cpacity for love. Like all people, the Afghani have good...they have bad.

The only "inpenetrable ignorance" here is your own. Your refusal to dialogue with one of the few who reads your poetry is a sad commentary on the state of your soul...but then your poetry reflects your soul and although it's sometimes bright, your poetry is fatally flawed. Your hate makes your poetry ugly, not passionate.

An Afgahni mother loves her child as much as yours loved you. Hate such of yours is not the mark of a good Jew, Christian, Hindi, Buddhist or Islamist. Hate will only nuture destruction, whether that hate is from an Afghani or you.

Anonymous said...

It finally came to me what is most disturbing about you and your poetry.

You are a bigot and you use poetry to express your bigotry.

Esav Benyamin said...

You still refuse to respond to the substantive elements of my answer to you. What is it about "love" that blinds you to the brutality of the Afghan culture?

You speak of bigots. Look to the Muslims for bigotry. You will find no more intense an experience of it anywhere else on Earth.

Anonymous said...

"You still refuse to respond to the substantive elements of my answer to you."

Your answer was that I was too ignorant to respond to. How can one respond to a refusal to engage. Nice way to treat the only one who cares to read and respond to your poetry.

"What is it about "love" that blinds you to the brutality of the Afghan culture?" The Afghan culture has a brutal side, so does American culture. In all people there are commonalities of good and bad.

No one can deny that the Nazis were the most brutal culture of the 20th century. However, many parts of Euorope welcomed the Nazis because they brought order, stability and prosperity...but at what cost?

The same is true of the Taliban, they brought stability, prosperity and the death of the opium trade...but at what cost?

I don't damn a German because of what the Nazi's have done. I don't damn all of german culture just because it produced the Nazis. You shouldn't damn individual Afghanis for what the Taliban does nor should you damn all of islam for the acts of some. Not all Afghanis are Taliban. Read your history and your news.

My father, a US WWII vet had two good friends, a German and Italian who also fought during the war for their respective countries. The mutual respect and love of these former enemies transcended the brutality of WWII. It showed me that there is good in all people and that all people can transcend the evil of their lives given a chance.

Esav Benyamin said...

The Afghan culture does not have a brutal "side" -- it is inherently brutal. Its treatment of women is unimaginable to most Americans - no rights, no education. An Afghan recently revealed himself to have converted to Christianity. The legislature moved to have him executed. Crowds attempted to break into the jail and lynch him.

I'm not talking about individuals. Of course there are exeptional individuals in every culture, for better or for worse. They do not define the daily way of life.

The Taliban brought the stability of the grave. They did not bring prosperity in any way. They eliminated opium for the same reason they eliminated everything else they did not control, and now that they are fighting the Afghan government, they encourage opium production to finance their own operations.

I am better educated in the history and current events of the world and Islam than you, with your fuzzy "all of us are alike" whining. Muslims are not all jihadists - they just support or approve or avoid criticizing them. If such a majority of Muslims are good people, where is their opposition to the war their leaders have been waging agains the West, that keeps their societies in poverty and ignorance?

And why the all-pervasive, state, mosque, and media propaganda calling for the destruction - not just of Israel - but of all Jews?

Islam: genocidal bigotry.

Unknown said...

Aside from the lust for beheadings, suicide bombings and genocidal bigotry against infidels (and often each other when they're bored) Muslims are really just like any other people.

Ofcourse I'm being sarcastic.

Anonymous,
If Muslims are like anyone else why is it they killed innocent people due to some silly Danish cartoons that seemingly linked Islam to violence?

Why does the vast majority of violence in the world involve Muslims who are incapable of living side by side with non-Muslims without blowing them up or beheading them?

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorism is done by Muslims, and almost all Muslims support terrorism and islamofascism either financially, with silent or not so silent approval, or directly.

Just like some people spoke out against Nazism in the 30's we have a right and duty to speak out against a far older form of fascism and bigotry called Islam.

Muslims have been trying to convert the infidels through terror and violence for 1400 years.
As it says on another blog about Islam:

"At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war."

Indeed we are.

Dar al Harb forever.