Lazarus Force

By Jemshed Khan

 

That day over lunch, I was going to write about the Yemenites starving while the Saudis build five new palaces on the Red Sea. A poem might make a difference. But the sun was shining, 75 degrees in October, and the outdoor pool is heated, so I went for a swim instead. As I swam  laps, I felt joy and splash with each stroke: thankful for clients traveling to see me in their combustion driven vehicles and for cheap fuel that leverages each shiny day. For three laps I considered the convenience of gasoline and writerly leisure. Okay, yes, a Lockheed Martin missile incinerated another Yemeni school bus, but how could a lunchtime poem make amends for fifty dead school children or eight million starving?

Poetry of angel wings and metrical feet,
I thought you were the steed of change,
that with the right words
we would skywrite the nation’s conscience.
Now I see my words never had Lazarus force
and we are no match to the God of gasoline.

The cardiologist said my heart stopped. The apartment manager says I was pulled blue from the pool: resuscitated with CPR and defibrillator paddles across the chest. I survived the ambulance ride, heart stents, ICU, rehab. Today I put my head back in the game. Read an anthology of resistance poetry. Each work smoldered on the page until my chest burst into flame. I rose from the bed, grabbed my pen, began to write again.

 


Jemshed Khan has published about 30 poems in such magazines as Rigorous, NanoText, Unlikely Stories, and I-70Review, and he is working towards a book-length collection.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash.

The No-Knock State

By Jemshed Khan

                       Upon hearing that Barrett Brown was jailed (again)

SWAT teams rumble streets.
Men in black smash down doors.

No one bothered to knock
65,000 times last year:

Hinges ripped from the jamb
with a battering ram or breach grenade.

My friend murmurs,
We live in a Police State,

but I still write and say and read
as I will, as we wait.

He points and whispers,
Someone’s listening at the door.

I hiss back, Surely. Enough. Already.
Though I turn and look to be sure.

 


Jemshed Khan lives and works in the Kansas City area. Born overseas of immigrant parents, he has experienced American culture both as an outsider and as a participant. He relishes the opportunity that the American dream and society have offered him, but also is alarmed by the rising authoritarian encroachment on privacy and freedom.

Photo credit: Steven Roy via a Creative Commons license.