XLIV from The Arab Apocalypse
By Etel Adnan
Where do you want ghosts to reside?
In our wakeful hours there are flowers which produce nightmares
We burned continents of silence the future of nations
the breathing of the fighters got thicker became like oxen’s
there is in that breath sparkles of scorched flesh and the fainting of stars
we crucify Gilgamesh on a TANK Viking II reaches Mars
Imam Ali dances over a nuclear blast
cursed are the clouds which repel water
cursed are the Arabs who fell tall and haggard eucalyptus trees
Copyright Credit: Etel Adnan, “XLIV” from The Arab Apocalypse. Copyright © 1989 by Etel Adnan. Reprinted by permission of Post-Apollo Press.
Source: The Arab Apocalypse (The Post-Apollo Press, 1989)