Rizwan Akhtar

Pakistan Meets a Terrorist

The world had one 9/11 and one 7/7
we live through them each moment

every day rehearse a dumb-show
of ridiculous stares silently

sift through the detritus
fingers limbs heads

a heck of imagery on roads
a grin tagged to each anatomy

out there on ticking check posts
police place their heart on triggers

under yellow bulbs rains pelt in ditches
all over cities cradles of fear

rock children to terrorist’s dissonance
now they speak powdery rhymes

ripped end-lines pelleted syntax
climax riddled form obscured

in smog and flames
like surreal poems trapped

between detonators and detectors
peeled and barbed bodies

in TV footages virtual reconstructions
thrice removed from reality

cameras run through smoke as ghosts
find a way of communication

jacketed in contentment
people respond to azans

in this debris of confusion
life plays its tenebrous rhythms

battery and gun siren and yell
downlink mortuaries with hell

still not enough to stop world’s tongue
from screaming headlines

the dangerous corner of the world
not knowing that our poetry is terror-free