and from the inside in

TERROR/MATHEMATICS
After the beheading of 21 Christian Egyptians in Libya, February 2015
Try calculated, think math.
Capture and + the numbers,
− the Muslims. 21 is what you are
left with, which is 3x7. Any multiple of 3
is blasphemous, is √all evil,
and we will / its neck open.
Islam is an X
in an equation we never
want you to solve. A % of you
will stop eating breakfast. Sure, there is the grief
of the mothers, who will pull at their hair,
+ the fathers, who will cover their faces with dirt,
& this can’t be ÷, like ∞,
but who has time for pain>> the sea,
which we will turn red. The killer/killed
ratio is 1:1, + the orator, who names the horror.
Color too, is used in this ∑. Kneel now, face down,
and we will show you DeathOrange.
You can keep your // universe of Love. We
ourselves to Paradise, which is and exact.
It’s simple. Try this:
[(Allah + Blood) x (Scream + Akbar)] = Y Fear
and this God here,
but surely, a Hell.
Zeina Hashem Beck
(first published in One Throne)
BEIRUT WALL, AUGUST 24, 2015
“There is no wall here,” you are told.
“What an imagination. We will pray for you.
There is no wall. Perhaps
you should sleep. Sleep.
Yalla, yalla tnam. We have pills.
Take this in the morning. It will make you
sing. This one here
(take it at night) will burn
like tear gas, and you will stop dreaming
for centuries.”
But you take your paint and your shovel, you say,
“There’s always been a wall here, with barbwire roots
that smell of money and rust.
I will draw. I will dance. I will dig,
start within my heart.”
Zeina Hashem Beck
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