A Poem for the Man Committing Suicide in the Streets of Kabul

                                            by David

You have already begun the process of becoming
dust. Dirt on your robes, namelessness.

You are what people fear becoming:
Hopeless Poverty, one of its many faces.

There is no surer way to die here
than in Kabul traffic,

sitting in the middle of the road,
your back to the blind corner.

Some unlucky driver is sure to kill you,
but none of the vendors help, no mother cries,

"Get out of the street!" You are ash
already, meticulously ignored by your own people

until the screech of brakes, the mangling
of the spine, the crushing of the head and legs.

Tonight, my first night in Afghanistan, I
lay back and watched the stars,

bats winging directly above me,
between me and the heavens.

In a corner there is a couple sipping beer,
while a mangy starved cat stalks toward me.

Music comes from a distance
while outside the compound's walls cars roar.

Would it have been unkindness to lift you
from the place where blood now cakes the dirt clumps,

to lengthen your hopelessness without
understanding lamentations?

I am so sorry it is come to this
in the land where there is not enough honey

and I am a not a Godly man, but I know
there is a time for everything, a season

for every activity, and a prayer for every
occasion. "Eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani"

is the one
for this.

 

 

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