Sentenced to 800 lashes.
Poets are swimmers, like mackerel
in a gulf of language.
Maybe you can swim through some
Suras, but you can’t swim through the Word.
The Word is not a reed flute
waiting to be filled with your breath.
Hey, No need
to keep swimming, you’ve got the Word,
dull, toneless, and full.
Poets are hungry, looking
for other mackerel to eat,
for water to drink,
new water to swim through.
Poetry doesn’t need martyrs,
but it can swallow its dead
and keep swimming.
Ashraf Fayadh’s father died
when he heard his son’s sentence.
Now Ashraf swims
in a boiling sea.
Written by Henry Bell.
Published in Henry's collection, The Last Lochan, Speculative Books, Glasgow, 2020. Available from www.speculativebooks.net