With Eyes Closed

From inside a hulking turret,
through gashes in the metal,
the sky glows blood red.
Allah's eyes draw shut
against the rising storm,
his lids like savage veils of sand
that cut my face, my hands.
His angry breath stirs up the desert,
chokes and blinds us all,
conquerors and conquered,
with grains of sand
that slip between the gears,
seize tight the juggernauts of war.

A helicopter hovers overhead
like a giant metal locust,
body looming through a sanguine
pall of driven dust and sand.
Its many-fingered wings
thud the air, rattle my ribs,
resonate through this carcass
full of unspent points of death --
bullets, shells, grenades.

Allah gave me eyelids
for times like these,
gifting me with blissful
blindness in the storm.
Not like our conquerors' god,
he who never sleeps,
he who goads them to overrun
what little we've built
upon the sand.

I saw a picture of his graven image
in a book when I was young.
A milk-white, alabaster son
in his mother's arms,
one hand raised, two fingers
jutting from a tiny folded fist.
His eyes still haunt me,
lidless, unblinking,
two polished spheres of white,
void of irises, of pupils.

Was it he who sent them here?
Can he see through Allah's veil?

   Don't be afraid,
my Master whispers,
through a hiss of sand that sings
across the mighty metal head.
   This deadly beast
   becomes your cradle.   
   Close your eyes,
   while I blow my breath
   and urge the locust on.
   Its fading thud of wings
   will lull you
   to a perfect sleep...

Scott Speck
03/29/2003