(no subject)

[kelachrome]

A Soldier’s Arabic

This is a strange new kind of war where you learn
just as much as you are able to believe.
E. Hemingway
 

The word for love, Habib, is written from right
to left, starting where we would end it
and ending where we might begin.

Where we would end a war
another might take as a beginning,
or as an echo of history, recited again.

Speak the word for death, Maut,
and you will hear the cursives of the wind
driven into the veil of the unknown.

This is a language made of blood.
It is made of sand, and time.
To be spoken, it must be earned.

Brian Turner

Comments

[pimmers.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I kinda wish this poem ended at the second stanza. "wind", "sand," "veil"? "Language made of blood"? Might as well have thrown in a camel and a harem so he could've given it the proper orientalist treatment.

[pimmers.livejournal.com]

And it's also wrong, "habib" means lover or loved one. "Hubb" means love.

[orange-fell.livejournal.com]

I was just about to say the same thing!

[pimmers.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I really like the concept of your LJ (ie. poems sharing!). May I friend you?

[pekkywriter.livejournal.com]

One more to agree. I find the exoticising air unsettling, to say the least.

Peace!

Pekky

[dotte.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with above comments, and it reads like something from Owl City lyrics