June 5: Poet of the Week, Kazim Ali, "Rain"

I am getting a little tired of all of the anti-Muslim rhetoric being thrown around on social media and the Internet.  So much hatred and bigotry.  People just don't seem to get it.  It's not the fault of Islam that those people were killed in London on Saturday.  It's the fault of a broken world.

There have been terrible things done in the name of every religion.  Remember a little thing called the Spanish Inquisition?  The Crusades?  If everyone actually followed the tenets of Christianity and Islam, the world would be a peaceful place.  A place of acceptance and love and forgiveness.

I have chosen Kazim Ali as Poet of the Week.

Saint Marty prays and hopes that a little rain falls on the fires burning in the world today.

Rain

by:  Kazim Ali

With thick strokes of ink the sky fills with rain.

Pretending to run for cover but secretly praying for more rain.

Over the echo of the water, I hear a voice saying my name.

No one in the city moves under the quick sightless rain.

The pages of my notebook soak, then curl. I’ve written:

“Yogis opened their mouths for hours to drink the rain.”

The sky is a bowl of dark water, rinsing your face.

The window trembles; liquid glass could shatter into rain.

I am a dark bowl, waiting to be filled.

If I open my mouth now, I could drown in the rain.

I hurry home as though someone is there waiting for me.

The night collapses into your skin. I am the rain.