Well Bottom Blues

Do all men kill the things they do not love?
-Bassanio, Act IV, Scene 1

swallow it whole, Jonah
facts are malleable
are more digestible when
pre-chewed into news
a ministry’s approved

those damned Amalekites
with their Kalashnikovs
camping on our land
ours from God and
righteous conquest

colonial solons of
Europe anointed
our project; granted
dominion over
the troublesome wogs

pestilential desert
creatures without a bit
of civilization;
clear their rubble
to expand Jerusalem…

every pound of flesh
                            bleeds
whatever the recipe
on any occasion
that calls for butchery

will you feel safer
when they are plated
with a garnish of war?
where are the borders
to contain your appetite?

before you cry
blood libel—
Likud Israel
has draped itself
in Shylock’s cloak

demands fulfillment
of the bloody contract
sanctified by scripture
writ by lords of
colonial opulence

you built your home
with bayonets and
bulldozers, watered
the desert with blood
to make it bloom

your warrior sky father
curse of the West
cannot escape
the inevitable cycles
observed further east

an eye for an eye
your prophets cried
and so you’re blind
to your history’s
ugly return