Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
We're working to fix a technical issue causing problems with our broadcasts. We'll have it resolved as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.

'Poem In Place Of A Fatwa'

Gun and ammunition. File photo.
Ken
/
Creative Commons

by Stan Sanvel Rubin

By all that is holy, I decree
that the murderers stop murdering,
running up their piles of corpses
like an accountant totaling numbers
at a desk      In the name of anyone's
god, lower or upper case, I insist
that children should not fall anymore like rotten figs,
that the demon of hatred for others be abolished      That a day of the fulfillment
of dreams is at hand      That soon the darkness,
as we have called it for centuries, will lift like smog
and reveal more than the indifferent wings of angels
trumpeting their stratospheric silence      The face
of humans truly and readily waking
to what was here all the time      That
even my own past selves, who are not
the best of buddies, will collide
like Abbot and Costello rounding too many corners running away from each other
Will ask for forgiveness and mean it

The Write Question blog
The Write Question on Facebook
The Write Question on Twitter
The Write Question podcast

There. Here., poems by Stan Sanvel Rubin

Stan Sanvel Rubin’s poetry has appeared in many national journals. The author of four full-length collections, including There. Here. (2013), he also writes essay-reviews for Water~Stone Review (Hamline University). His interviews with writers have been widely published. After serving as Director of the Brockport Writers Forum & Videotape Library (SUNY) for many years, he moved to the Olympic Peninsula in 2003 as founding director of the Rainier Writing Workshop low-residency MFA at Pacific Lutheran University. Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Stan is a resident of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.

Chérie Newman is a former arts and humanities producer and on-air host for Montana Public Radio, and a freelance writer. She founded and previously hosted a weekly literary program, The Write Question, which continues to air on several public radio stations; it is also available online at PRX.org and MTPR.org.
Become a sustaining member for as low as $5/month
Make an annual or one-time donation to support MTPR
Pay an existing pledge or update your payment information
Related Content
  • A visit with poet Tyler Knott Gregson, an unlikely success story from Helena, Montana. He typed his first poem off the top of his head, standing up, on an…
  • by Joe WilkinsIsn't it a shame, my grandmother said,silver fork in her shivering fist,how we have to go on eating?We were sitting up to burnt…
  • by Jim HarrisonRumi advised me to keep my spiritup in the branches of a tree and not peekout too far, so I keep mine in the very tallwillows along the…
  • by Richard O. MooreAfterward, you look on the world as a happy placeflush from arrival into a new land of not being in pain.Is there anything forgotten,…