The harem throbs
with limping concubines.
Their sisters wait
in chained and shackled lines.
The sheikh inspects
and cups each quivering breast,
checks for severed pleasure,
decides which one is best.
For thirteen centuries.
Not two or three. Thirteen.
Good evening, Mister Historian,
and where on earth have you been?
Their brothers ponder,
penned like billygoats
on the sunburnt ground,
and from their sunburnt throats
to their howling stomachs
they sting and boil with rage,
too lame to snap those shackles,
too lame to smash that cage.
For thirteen centuries.
Not two or three. Thirteen.
Good evening, Miss Politician,
and where on earth have you been?
The toothless eunuch
guards the harem gate,
his black brow sweeps the floor
as he mulls his fate.
Once he had a daughter,
the sweetest in the land,
but now she lies face-down
out on the sunburnt sand.
For thirteen centuries.
Not two or three. Thirteen.
Good evening, Mister Theorist,
and where on earth have you been?
The merchant bellows
and whips his two-legged cattle.
The desert stretches, stretches,
an endless, sunburnt battle,
a sandy graveyard
where millions lie and rot
so pickled frogs and lobsters
can line the Arab’s pot.
For thirteen centuries
which perhaps are still not done.
So where’s the Arab’s apology?
And where’s the demand for one?
